A LACQUERED PAPIER-MÂCHÉ PEN CASE (QALAMDAN) WITH BAHRAM GUR AND THE SEVEN PRINCESSES
PROPERTY FROM AN IMPORTANT PRIVATE EUROPEAN COLLECTOR
Qajar Iran, 19th century

With rounded ends and sliding tray, lacquered, polychrome-painted and heightened in gold, the horizontally arranged curved top and sides painted with seven scenes of leisure depicting Bahram Gur in the seven pavilions from Nizami’s romance, Haft Peykar, chapter 25, describing Bahram’s winter bazm (private banquet) with each princess, each cusped cartouche depicting the crowned youth being entertained and dallying with a lascivious princess in a courtly interior, with food, drinks and music, the scenes interspersed with tronies of Qajar youths, white oval cartouches accompanying the scenes with black ink epigraphic inscriptions reading Majlese-e Haft Bahram Gur, signed The Work of Bahram Isfahani and dated 1250 AH (1834), the sides of the sliding tray painted in gold with stylised rosette sprays and saz leaves against a black ground, the underside of the case similar but against a red ground, 22.5cm long.