2002.50.111: Pen Box with Birds, Flowers, and Butterflies
Artists' ToolsIdentification and Creation
- Object Number
- 2002.50.111
- Title
- Pen Box with Birds, Flowers, and Butterflies
- Classification
- Artists' Tools
- Work Type
- pen box
- Date
- 18th-19th century
- Places
- Creation Place: Middle East, Iran
- Period
- Qajar period
- Persistent Link
- https://hvrd.art/o/160304
Physical Descriptions
- Medium
- Opaque and semi-opaque watercolor and shell-gold flakes on prepared pasteboard under shellac varnish
- Dimensions
- 4.4 x 24.2 x 3.7 cm (1 3/4 x 9 1/2 x 1 7/16 in.)
Provenance
- Recorded Ownership History
- [Hadji Baba Rabbi House of Antiquities, Teheran, 1973], sold; to Stanford and Norma Jean Calderwood, Belmont, MA (1973-2002), gift; to Harvard Art Museums, 2002.
Acquisition and Rights
- Credit Line
- Harvard Art Museums/Arthur M. Sackler Museum, The Norma Jean Calderwood Collection of Islamic Art
- Accession Year
- 2002
- Object Number
- 2002.50.111
- Division
- Asian and Mediterranean Art
- Contact
- am_asianmediterranean@harvard.edu
- Permissions
-
The Harvard Art Museums encourage the use of images found on this website for personal, noncommercial use, including educational and scholarly purposes. To request a higher resolution file of this image, please submit an online request.
Descriptions
- Description
- The upper surface of this pen box (qalamdan) is divided into three lobed cartouches outlined in gold, their interstices filled with golden palmettes and flowers. A bird-and-flower composition uniting nightingale, rose, and blossoming branch dominates the center cartouche. The flanking compartments, one broadly mirroring the other save changes in palette, contain prunus blossoms, a tulip, and hovering butterflies that gather nectar from and pollinate the plants. The background of the pen box is a deep reddish brown flecked with particles of gold; it provides the ideal contrast for the bright colors used in the bird-and- flower designs. The coloristic effect of the palette—greens, white, blues, pinks, browns, and reds—has been unified by the layers of shellac varnish applied to the surface as a final stage. The sides of the pen box continue the subject matter of the upper face, similarly structured in three compositional groupings; the principal difference is that the birds directly confront the winged insects amid miniature floral thickets.
Published Catalogue Text: In Harmony: The Norma Jean Calderwood Collection of Islamic Art , written 2013
55
Pen box with birds, flowers, and butterflies
Iran, Qajar period, 18th–19th century
Opaque and semi-opaque watercolor and shell-gold flakes on prepared pasteboard under shellac varnish
4.4 × 24.2 × 3.7 cm (1 3/4 × 9 1/2 × 1 7/16 in.)
2002.50.111
The upper surface of this pen box (qalamdān) is divided into three lobed cartouches outlined in gold, their interstices filled with golden palmettes and flowers. A bird-and-flower composition uniting nightingale, rose, and blossoming branch dominates the center cartouche. The flanking compartments, one broadly mirroring the other save for changes in palette, contain prunus blossoms, a tulip, and hovering butterflies that gather nectar from and pollinate the plants. The background of the pen box is a deep reddish brown flecked with particles of gold; it provides the ideal contrast for the bright colors used in the bird-and-flower designs. The coloristic effect of the palette—greens, white, blues, pinks, browns, and reds—has been unified by the layers of shellac varnish applied to the surface as a final stage. The sides of the pen box continue the subject matter of the upper face, similarly structured in three compositional groupings; the principal difference is that the birds directly confront the winged insects amid miniature floral thickets.
David J. Roxburgh
Publication History
- Mary McWilliams, ed., In Harmony: The Norma Jean Calderwood Collection of Islamic Art, exh. cat., Harvard Art Museums (Cambridge, MA, 2013), pp. 67-69, ill.; p. 207, cat. 55, ill.
Exhibition History
Verification Level
This record has been reviewed by the curatorial staff but may be incomplete. Our records are frequently revised and enhanced. For more information please contact the Division of Asian and Mediterranean Art at am_asianmediterranean@harvard.edu