Qajar Still Life Painting

School of Mirza Baba, Persia

First Half of the 19th Century

The influence of European ‘Still Life’ is seen in this charming naive painting showing luscious fruit piled high in porcelain bowls on a rich brocaded tablecloth against an architectural framework.

Still life as a genre entered Persian painting in the late 18th century when the influential artist Mirza Baba (who worked for the Emperor Fath Ali Shah) began to fill the foreground of his architectural paintings with arrangements of oversized ripe fruit, a natural counterpoint to the manmade lavish palace architecture beyond.

This subject was one that was often used to decorate garden pavilions such as the Fin garden pavilion at Kashan and typically, traces of plaster on the reverse of the canvas show that this painting is likely to have been made for this purpose.

h 91 cm w 77 cm (36 in x 30.5 in) excluding modern frame

Bibliography: Royal Persian Paintings, The Qajar Epoch 1785-1925
Diba and Ekhtar 1998 p.214-215

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