*A QAJAR LACQUERED PAPIER-MÂCHÉ FIGURAL BOOKCOVER

PROPERTY FROM AN IMPORTANT EUROPEAN PRIVATE COLLECTION
Iran, 19th century

Of rectangular shape, the polychrome-painted and gold-heightened horizontal figural composition depicting a dear topos in Persian literature extracted from Jami's Haft Awrang tale of Yusuf o Zuleykha, Yusuf entering the room with a tray full of oranges and Zuleykha, her courtiers and female attendants inadvertently cutting themselves mesmerised by Yusuf's beauty, the focus of the scene and the female gazes gravitating around the standing Yusuf (Joseph), here depicted as a Qajar prince with a gold-embroidered pink tunic with emerald-encrusted buttons and wearing a tall crown, only one lady looking away, reclined in the foreground, still holding a knife and an orange, the scene set in a typical Qajar courtly interior, providing a powerful fresco of the interior design and female fashion in 19th-century Iran, the back plain, 15cm x 27.5cm.

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