[An album of twenty-eight watercolours depicting Qajar tradespeople.]

£13,500 · Offered by Maggs Bros Ltd

A rare album of tradespeople, showing middle and working class Iranians rarely depicted in Qajar School paintings**. It importantly includes two images of Afro-Iranians, whose existence was seldom recorded in Qajar visual culture until the use of photography became widespread toward the end of the nineteenth century.** Though we cannot say for certain, it was potentially acquired by Jane (née Carruthers) Redhouse (d.1887), wife of James Redhouse (1811-1892), during their residence at Ezurum in eastern Turkey between 1842 and 1847 as part of the Anglo-Russian committee mediating border disputes between the Ottoman Empire and Qajar Iran. The watercolours primarily depict men engaged in trade, carrying their tools and wares, or busily engaged in physical work. There are sellers of sherbet, poultry, herbs, cabbages, amulets, prayer beads, wine and water. A book-dealer even makes an appearance, casually transporting multiple tomes with the use of a leather book sling. Their range of dress is carefully depicted, from the fine green robes of the aforementioned book-dealer to the cabbage-seller’s holed and patchy attire. Such details are quietly significant, as they add socio-economic context to the images, showing which trades made good livings and which provided a more hardscrabble existence. The other subjects include beggars and three paintings of Iranian women, all in full-length walking dress, ranging from sober black to bright floral print. The aforementioned watercolours of A

• Binding: Hardcover

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