Enrica Medugno
Senior Sale Coordinator
Lot 86R
A Qajar lacquer penbox (qalamdan) Persia, dated AH 1182/ AD 1768-9
23 May 2023, 11:00 BST
London, New Bond StreetSold for £3,200 inc. premium
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Oliver White
Head of Department
A Qajar lacquer penbox (qalamdan)
Persia, dated AH 1182/ AD 1768-9
Persia, dated AH 1182/ AD 1768-9
with rounded ends and sliding tray, decorated in polychrome and gilt with scenes from a romance, to the top a prince before a sage and inscriptions, further scenes to the sides with a princess looking at a picture of an admirer, the base and sides of inner tray with floral interlace, inside a brass inkwell set with red gemstones and turquoise, with cloth case
24.2 cm. long
24.2 cm. long
Footnotes
Inscriptions: signed ya sadiq al-wa'd sanah 1182, 'O You, who is true to Your Promise! The year 1182 (1768-9).'
According to Karimzadeh, there were two painters who signed in this way: Muhammad Sadiq I and Muhammad Sadiq II. Tim Stanley, however, argues that both are the same Muhammad Sadiq, a pupil of 'Ali Ashraf and worked in Shiraz and Isfahan during the Zand and early Qajar periods. He is described as a painter who worked in lacquer, watercolour and illumination and depicted flower and birds, portraits, sufi scenes (as on this pen box) as well as large paintings such as the depiction of the Battle of Karnal between the Afsharid Nadir Shah and the Mughal Muhammad Shah in the Chehel Sotun palace in Isfahan (Nasser D. Khalili, B.W. Robinson and T. Stanley, Lacquer of the Islamic Lands, Part One, 1996, pp. 74-5 and 134-5 and M.A. Karimzadeh Tabrizi, The Lives & Art of Old Painters of Iran, vol. 1, London, 1985, pp. 257-9).