2014.345: Pen Box with Birds, Butterflies, and Flowers
Artists' Tools
This object does not yet have a description.
Identification and Creation
- Object Number
- 2014.345
- People
-
Fathallah Shirazi
- Title
- Pen Box with Birds, Butterflies, and Flowers
- Classification
- Artists' Tools
- Work Type
- pen box
- Date
- 1886-1887
- Places
- Creation Place: Middle East, Iran, Shiraz
- Period
- Qajar period
- Persistent Link
- https://hvrd.art/o/351831
Physical Descriptions
- Medium
- Opaque watercolor, gold-colored pigments, and lacquer over metallic layer on pasteboard
- Dimensions
- 3.8 × 3.8 × 23 cm (1 1/2 × 1 1/2 × 9 1/16 in.)
- Inscriptions and Marks
-
-
inscription:
السلطان ناصرالدین شاه خلد الله ملکه سلطانه
رقم جان نثار فتح الله شیرازی ۱۳۰۴
Al-Sultan Nasir al-Din Shah, May God perpetuate his kingly realm.
Work of the life-scattering, Fathallah Shirazi, 1886-87
-
inscription:
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
- 2014.345
- 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 horizontal format with central cartouche with concentric gold frames containing a songbird. An inscription on the top names the Qajar ruler Nasir al-Din Shah (r. 1848-96). The spaces to the left and right are richly decorated with birds, butterflies, and flowers. The sides are composed of cartouches filled with animal families, flowers, birds, and winged putti. On the base, a cartouche filled with rabbits is flanked by bouquets. The sliding compartment is decorated on the outer surfaces with lobed medallions cartouches containing pairs of birds and vignettes of men riding horses or camels.
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), pp. 86-87, ill.; p. 148, cat. 148
Exhibition History
- 32Q: 3620 University Study Gallery, Harvard Art Museums, Cambridge, 08/17/2017 - 01/07/2018
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