A QAJAR LACQUERED PAPIER-MÂCHÉ PEN CASE (QALAMDAN)
Iran, 19th century

With rounded ends and sliding tray, finely polychrome-painted over an ochre ground, the top, sides, and ends with horizontal compositions of the typical gul-o-bulbul (rose and nightingale) motif, the top further enhanced with a pair of lobed cartouches bearing tronies of young maidens in European dress and bonnets, the sides with gentlemen in military dresses facing alluring ladies, on one side flanking a classical ruin with shepherds, possibly from a European ‘Nativity’ scene, the other with a tightrope walker and a clown entertaining a segregated seated Persian audience to musical accompaniment in a landscape, the interior of the tray in green, the inner sides and base in red, the outer base in gold-sprinkled red, outlined in gold throughout, 23.5cm x 4.2cm x 4cm.