21 A PERSIAN NOBLE LADY AS AN ACROBAT PERFORMING A HANDSTAND

Qajar Empire

Attributable to the Artist

ʻAhmadʼ (Active between 1815-1850).

First Half of the 19th Century

Dimensions: 151.5 x 86 cm.

Oil on canvas, depicting a Persian noble lady, possibly a member of the Qajar imperial harem, as an acrobat performing a handstand, wearing a lavish costume embroidered with roses and decorated with pearls.

There are two closely related Qajar acrobat portraits in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London (Accession numbers: 719-1876 and 720-1876), both attributed to the artist ‘Ahmad’ by Layla S. Diba. Please see the related entry in the exhibition catalogue, Royal Persian Paintings – The Qajar Epoch 1785-1925, Edited by Layla S. Diba and Maryam Ekhtiar, I. B. Tauris Publishers in Association with Brooklyn Museum of Art, 1998, New York, pp. 210-211, Nos. 60, 61.

The present portrait is almost identical to the second V&A portrait (Accession number: 720-1876, Dimensions: 151.5 x 80.4 cm.) which -according to the online museum entry- was “part of a group purchased by the Victoria and Albert Museum in 1876. At the time it was described as being ‘From the Shah’s palace at Tehran’. The painting may well have been removed from a palace erected by Fath ‘Ali Shah (r. 1797-1834). His residences were often decorated with series of oil paintings in this style. … Many of the series painted for Fath ‘Ali Shah show imaginary portraits of members of the royal harem.”. For the complete entry please see, https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O69980/femaletumbler-oil-painting-unknown/

Layla S. Diba has identified the origin of the V&A Qajar acrobat portraits as the Gulistan Palace, Tehran, “according to a letter dated October 1875 from Colonel R. Murdoch Smith, of the Telegraph Department, Tehran”. Please see, Ibid, p. 210.

The lady’s costume embroidered with intertwined roses tell us a story. In Persian poetry, the rose symbolizes ‘the beloved’ whose love makes the nightingale, ‘the lover’, sing the most beautiful love songs. Please see, Motif from the Sadberk Hanım Museum Collection (written by Turgut Saner, Şebnem Eryavuz and Hülya Bilgi), Sadberk

Hanım Museum, Istanbul, 2020, p. 94. The worldfamous 14th century Persian poet Hafez-i Shirazi, in the following lines, likens his beloved to a rose and himself to a nightingale: “I went to the garden one morning to pick a rose and suddenly heard a nightingale’s song. Like me, the poor bird had fallen in love with a rose and in the field, raised a commotion with his cries.”

The exquisite roses on our lady’s costume therefore allow us to identify her as the beloved, perhaps one of the favourites of the shah.

The painting also shows how ‘liberal’ and ‘modern’ 19th century Persian women were. In those days, the social and political atmosphere obviously allowed a Persian noble lady, in this case probably a member of the imperial harem, to be depicted in a painting as an acrobat-dancer. The painting belongs to a small group of full-length portraits associated with Fath ‘Ali Shah’s (r. 1797-1834) patronage, some of which are reported to have come from the Gulistan Palace in Tehran.

A comparable Qajar acrobat in the ‘Archives Cantonales du Tessin’ is published in the exhibition catalogue L’Empire des Roses: Chefs-d’œuvre de l’Art Persan du XIXe Siècle, Snoeck, Louvre Lens, Paris, 2018, no. 191, p. 181.

A similar portrait of a Qajar a female acrobat performing handstands was sold at Christie’s London. Please see, Christie’s - Art of the Islamic and Indian Worlds including Oriental Rugs and Carpets, 11 April 2000, Lot 111.

Provenance: Ex-Private French Collection from Corbeil Essonne.

22 RARE OTTOMAN ENAMELLED ROSE-WATER SPRINKLER DECORATED WITH SPRING FLOWERS

Ottoman Empire 18th-19th Century

Height: 12cm.

Of bulbous form of low footring with screw-fitted narrow cylindrical neck, decorated with polychrome enamels depicting spring flowers between foliate gilt bands.

Enamelled objects such as bowls, covered dishes, rosewater sprinklers, mastic-holders were increasingly fashionable among the Ottoman elite. Especially during the 18th and 19th centuries, these objects played an important role in the daily lives of the members of the Ottoman upper classes both with their practical uses and decorative values. This is a rare, miniature rosewater sprinkler, probably produced for a lady.

The spring flowers decorating the present piece have an important place in the Ottoman decoratif repertoire. In the Ottoman period flowers were a constant part of daily life, grown in gardens everywhere, from palaces to humble homes. Flowers were blessed reminders of the gardens of heaven. Foreign travellers and ambassadors who visited the empire frequently remarked about this love of flowers. The 17th century Ottoman writer and traveller Evliya Çelebi describes how vases of roses, tulips, hyacinths, narcissi and lilies were placed between the rows of worshippers in the Eski Mosque and the Üç Şerefeli Mosque in Edirne, and how their scent filled the prayer halls. As depicted in the present rosewater sprinkler, vases of flowers adorned niches in the walls, dining trays and rows of vases were placed around rooms and pools. For further information please see, (written by Turgut Saner, Şebnem Eryavuz and Hülya Bilgi), Sadberk Hanım Museum, Istanbul, 2020, pp. 86-90.

Provenance:

Ex-Argine Benaki Salvago Collection.

Argine Benaki Salvago (1883-1972)

Argine Benaki Salvago was one of the leading social and cultural figures of Alexandria in the 1930s. Thanks to its position as the main trading port in the southern Mediterranean, in those years Alexandria was a cosmopolitan hub. The expansion of commercial traffic through the ancient port in the late Ottoman period offered an opportunity for entrepreneurial Greek families in the city, such as the Benakis, Choremis and Salvagos, to thrive economically. Argine’s parents, Emmanuel

Benaki and Virginia Choremi, were both leading cotton producers, whose marriage sealed their business alliance, transforming them into the primary exporters of high-quality Egyptian cotton. Her husband, Michael Salvago, also a cotton baron, came from a family whose many notable achievements included the setting up of the National Bank of Egypt in 1898. Against this backdrop of private wealth, urbane cosmopolitanism and international sophistication, it is no surprise that prestigious collections of art were formed at this time.

In 1927, Argine’s brother Antony left Alexandria for Athens, where four years later the lion’s share of his collection, as well as the family’s home in Athens, was donated to the Greek state with the foundation of the Benaki Museum. The legacy of this great collecting dynasty was therefore preserved in a public institution to be enjoyed and appreciated by the general public. Argine also went on to donate her extensive collection of Persian antique jewellery, which can be viewed today in the Benaki Museum of Islamic Art.

Ottoman Empire or possibly Qajar Empire

Signed Ahmad, Dated 1261 A.H. 1844 C.E.

Length: 42.2 cm.

Width: 4.5 cm.