2014.340: Pen Box with the Virgin and Child

Identification and Creation

Object Number

2014.340

People

Abu’l-Hasan al-Ghaffari Naqqash-Bashi
`Abd al-Vahhab Muzahhib-Bashi Shirazi

Title

Pen Box with the Virgin and Child

Classification

Artists' Tools

Work Type

pen box

Date

1854-1855

Places

Creation Place: Middle East, Iran

Period

Qajar period

Culture

Persian

Persistent Link

https://hvrd.art/o/351827

Physical Descriptions

Medium

Opaque watercolor, gold-colored pigments, and lacquer over brass and tin layers on pasteboard

Dimensions

3.2 × 3.6 × 21.8 cm (1 1/4 × 1 7/16 × 8 9/16 in.)

Inscriptions and Marks

• inscription:
  
  
  راقمه ابوالحسن الغفاری نقاشباشی
  
  
  
  یا وهّاب ۱۲۷۱
  
  
  
  Painted by Abu al-Hasan al-Ghaffari, Chief Painter
  
  
  
  O Munificent One! 1854-55
  
  
  
  

Provenance

Recorded Ownership History

Ezzat-Malek Soudavar, Geneva, Switzerland (by 2014), by descent; to her son Abolala Soudavar, Houston, Texas (2014), gift; to Harvard Art Museums, 2014.

Note:
Ezzat-Malek Soudavar (1913-2014) formed this collection over a period of sixty years. She purchased the works of art on the international art market.

Acquisition and Rights

Credit Line

Harvard Art Museums/Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Gift of A. Soudavar in memory of his mother Ezzat-Malek Soudavar

Accession Year

2014

Object Number

2014.340

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

Cover and sliding compartment with rounded ends. The top is decorated in vertical format with an oblong cartouche containing the Virgin and Child, a white-bearded man, and a winged putto. The rest of the top and the sides are covered with densely painted illumination. The base and outer surfaces of the compartment are painted with a gold arabesque on a red background. Inside the compartment, multicolored flowers are painted on a gold background.

Publication History

• Massumeh Farhad and Mary McWilliams, ed., A Collector’s Passion: Ezzat-Malek Soudavar and Persian Lacquer, Harvard Art Museums and Freer/Sackler Galleries, Smithsonian Institution (Cambridge, MA/Washington, D.C., 2017), p. 140, cat. 122
• David Roxburgh and Mary McWilliams, ed., Technologies of the Image: Art in 19th-Century Iran, exh. cat., Harvard Art Museums (Cambridge, MA, 2017), pp. 152-153, cat. 63

Exhibition History

• Technologies of the Image: Art in 19th-Century Iran, Harvard Art Museums, Cambridge, 08/26/2017 - 01/07/2018

Verification Level