TWO LACQUERED PAPIER-MÂCHÉ PEN CASES (QALAMDAN) WITH FIGURAL LITERARY SCENES
Qajar Iran, 19th and 20th century

Each with rounded ends and sliding tray, polychrome-painted, heightened in gold, and lacquered, the decoration on both qalamdans arranged in horizontal order, the top and sides of each pen case painted with recurrent narratives from traditional Persian literary epics and romances, including scenes from Nizami Ganjavi's Khosrow o Shirin and Haft Peykar, and Sa'di's Bustan, the top of each pen case featuring the typical Indian-inspired Visit to a Sage scene, reflecting the recurrent custom among Muslim rulers of India of visiting Sufi masters, repeating an analogous arrangement starting from the left with a lady pining for her lover; a jockey taming a horse; and a prince consulting the sage; all set against idealised hillocky landscapes, one pen case inscribed in black on the top and reading Commissioned by Rukn VI Haka (?), the Work of the Painter Hassan Sarkari 1320 AH (1902), the underside of this case and the inner sides of the sliding tray plain black, the underside and inner sides of the sliding tray of the latter pen case instead decorated with a stylised scrollwork of rosettes, lotus flowers, and saz leaves in gold against a red ground, the longest 23.1cm.

The stylistic composition of the decorative narrative of the Visit to a Sage on the top of both pen cases harks back to a well-established classical model attributed to the lacquer master Muhammad Sadiq ('Ya Sadiq al-Wa'd'). To view a sketch of the original, please see M. A. Karimzadeh Tabrizi, Qalamdan and Persian Lacquer Work, 2000, p. 342 (first image on the left). For further comparisons and to appreciate the evolution of this recurrent theme through different artists' hands, please see Nasser D. Khalili, B.W. Robinson, and Tim Stanley, Lacquer of the Islamic Lands: Part One, 1996, pp. 134 - 139, cats. 96 - 102.