File:A fine gem-set, enamelled and gilded porcelain Portrait depicting Fath 'Ali Shah Qajar, England, circa 1820-30.jpg

English: A fine gem-set, enamelled and gilded porcelain Portrait depicting Fath 'Ali Shah Qajar

England, circa 1820-30

The portrait depicting the Shah standing in full regalia, within a beaded pearl band, in an elaborate oval silver frame with crescent below and openwork floral sprays on the edge, set with diamonds and rubies the portrait 5.5 cm. high; the frame 10.5 cm. high

Portraits of Fath 'Ali Shah were produced in England in the 1820s. These images were derived from sketches by the artist Sir Robert Ker Porter (1777-1820) when he travelled through Persia in 1817-20. The main objective of his mission was to record pre-Islamic remains, in particular Persepolis, but in 1818 he was granted an audience with Crown Prince 'Abbas Mirza in Tabriz. In 1810, 'Abbas Mirza had been entrusted with foreign relations by Fath 'Ali Shah and so it was common to find foreign envoys residing in the city. He sketched the Prince and presented him with a finished portrait.

Ker Porter then accompanied 'Abbas Mirza to Tehran, where it was arranged for the artist to sketch Fath 'Ali Shah from life. A portrait was then presented to the Shah. Although the Shah sat for Ker Porter in more formal attire, the finished portrait depicted him in his robes of state. These portraits remained in Persia but when the artist returned to Europe he had his originals engraved as three-quarter length frontispieces in the two volumes of his Travels in Georgia, Asia, Armenia, Ancient Babylonia, during the years 1817, 1818, 1819 and 1820, which was published in London in 1820-21.

This lot depicting Fath 'Ali Shah is a mirror image of Ker Porter's drawings and the engravings made from them. There was much British interest in Persia at the time. For examples of portraits of Fath 'Ali Shah and 'Abbas Mirza in the Nasser D Khallili Collection of Islamic Art, see Stephen Vernoit, Occidentalism. Islamic Art in the 19th Century, Oxford, 1997, pp. 96-97, nos. 51 and 52; both are inscribed on the backs with the sitter's name and the date 1929.