The Qajar Ruler, Fath 'Ali Shah

Image credit: The Khalili Collections

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Compared to life-sized portraits of the Qajar ruler, this miniature depicts Fath 'Ali Shah as markedly fuller-faced and with a much shorter beard, but his continuous eyebrows – in Qajar art, a mark of male as well as female beauty – are immediately recognisable. Instead of the Kayanid crown he invented, he wears a tall astrakhan hat decorated with an aigrette in the form of an early seventeenth-century Mughal turban pin, doubtless booty brought back by Nadir Shah from the Mughal treasury in Delhi. The portrait is signed by Baqir, an artist of remarkable versatility who worked for Fath 'Ali Shah. He worked to a consistently high standard in oils on canvas, miniatures and book illumination, as well as on lacquer.

The Khalili Collections

London

Title

The Qajar Ruler, Fath 'Ali Shah

Date

early 19th C

Medium

gold sheet, painted with opaque & translucent enamels; the back is counter-enamelled in opaque turquoise-blue

Accession number

367

Work type

Miniature

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The Khalili Collections

London, Greater London England

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