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A large Qajar tinned-copper urn made for the smallpox vaccinator Hayder 'Ali Persia, dated AH 1271/ AD 1854-5 image 1
A large Qajar tinned-copper urn made for the smallpox vaccinator Hayder 'Ali Persia, dated AH 1271/ AD 1854-5 image 2
A large Qajar tinned-copper urn made for the smallpox vaccinator Hayder 'Ali Persia, dated AH 1271/ AD 1854-5 image 3
A large Qajar tinned-copper urn made for the smallpox vaccinator Hayder 'Ali Persia, dated AH 1271/ AD 1854-5 image 4
Lot 90R

A large Qajar tinned-copper urn made for the smallpox vaccinator Hayder 'Ali
Persia, dated AH 1271/ AD 1854-5

23 May 2023, 11:00 BST
London, New Bond Street

Sold for £1,920 inc. premium

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A large Qajar tinned-copper urn made for the smallpox vaccinator Hayder 'Ali
Persia, dated AH 1271/ AD 1854-5

of waisted flaring form on a long splayed foot, the body profusely engraved with a series of boteh overlaid with birds perching amidst scrolling vines, above and below bands of inscription-filled cartouches, the neck with a large band if inscription on a ground of floral interlace flanking an inscription-filled cartouche
48. 5 cm. high

Footnotes

Inscriptions: in the wide band around the rim, The call to God to bless the Fourteen Innocents; in a lobed cartouche, 'Its owner Haydar 'Ali, smallpox vaccinator (abalah-kub), 1271 (1854-5)'; in the small cartouches, around the body, in a poor hand, repeat of a few couplets from a ghazal of Hafiz, ending with the call to God to bless the Chosen Muhammad (repeated twice).

Smallpox vaccination in Iran commenced on a limited scale in the 19th century by the order of Abbas Mirza (1789 - 1833), the Crown Prince of Fath Ali Shah Qajar (reg. 1797 - 1834), and was reinforced in 1848 by Mirza Taghi Khan Amir Kabir (1807 - 1852) the Prime Minster of Naser ad-Din Shah. It became more popular after the establishment of the Pasteur Institute in Tehran in 1921, where considerable doses of smallpox vaccine were produced. In addition, in subsequent years, a law that mandated public smallpox vaccination was passed by the Iranian parliament in 1953 and eventually the mass vaccination program led to the complete eradication of smallpox in Iran by 1978.

Additional information