TWO QAJAR LACQUERED PAPIER-MÂCHÉ QALAMDANS (PEN BOXES)
Iran, late 19th - early 20th century

With rounded ends and sliding trays, the larger with a vertically-arranged cartouche containing the portrait of a seated statesman in Qajar dress, birds and flowers on the curved top, the sides with four tronies set against gol-o-bolbol motifs, the base and inner sides with scrolling gold lotuses against a dark brown ground, the black interior with a silver filigree lidded dawat (inkwell) of solid copper base, still containing the calligrapher’s tools: three reed pens, a double pen-knife, a nielloed conical resting stand to hold the ketabat nib, and a strip of horn for cutting the nib of the reed pen (qatt-zan), 22cm x 3.5cm x 3.5cm; and another, similar, with horizontally-arranged bird and flower motifs against a black ground to the curved top and sides, the red inner sides and base with scrolling lotuses on red ground, the inner base and inside red, 20cm x 3.2cm x 3cm.

The tools in the first qalamdan open a rare window into the working life of a calligrapher. To the cognoscenti of the art of calligraphy, the small indentations caused by cutting the nib on the strip of bone alone, are meditation aids: mortal the artist may be, but the instruments and the work shall remain. The filigree inkwell is not a contradiction: good ink is held by silk threads and does not spill.