Iranian ceramics, and tiles in particular, are a wonderful window into the world of industry, artistry and colour where form and function meet. Courtly life, nature and hunting, and regal portraits illustrate Persian ideas, stories and ways of life. The sale of the George Farrow collection on Tuesday 4 June includes a wonderful collection of tiles from the Qajar dynasty (1789-1925AD) providing a window into the breadth of the Qajar decorative repertoire.
Moulded tiles such as the courtly scenes presented in Lot 298 were likely made in and around Isfahan during the mid-19th century and used in friezes to decorate interior and exterior walls of many secular buildings. They were much admired by Europeans and sold individually to visitors with many ending up in museum collections, such as the Victoria and Albert Museum and the British Museum. Some depicted real historical events such as the hemispherical tile in the Farrow collection which shows the Safavid ruler Shah Abbas, who ruled Persia from 1571-1629, receiving the Mughal ambassador Khan Alam in 1681. The tile painter has shown the two seated together in the centre top of the tile, an array of dishes below them, and rows of courtiers to their left and right.
Amongst the most innovative designs introduced during the Qajar period was the use of intertwined scrolling arabesque bands in black against white (see the borders of lots 298, 299, 300), also seen in metalwork of the period.
A major theme of Qajar tiles are portraits of kings and princes, both present and past, often engaged in hunting scenes. These can be naturalistic or more static portraits. Lot 299 depicts a prince and his female companion mounted and chasing deer across a rocky landscape dotted with flowers with buildings in the distance. The moulded texture of the tile lends itself well to illustrating movement seen here in the hunting dog who turns his head to look at the charging horses above and the figures carrying beating sticks, chatting to each other as they walk. The four tiles in lot 301 are representative of more standard stock portraits, each depicting a mounted ruler with his hunting falcon in a landscape of flowers. Lots 307 and 311 and 319 show the various courtly pleasures of feasting, dancing and musical entertainment enjoyed by the members of the Qajar ruling classes. Lot 296 is a wonderful large frieze of courtiers and a lady entertained by her courtiers, drinking and eating fruit. The glorious yellow and cobalt blue sets the scene under a bright sun and blue sky.
Two outstanding tiles from the Farrow collection, Lots 302 and 303, are naturalistic displays of floral abundance, combining delicate stems with large flowerheads in the typical Qajar colour palette of soft pinks, turquoise and cobalt blues, yellow and magenta.
Lot 302: A square moulded polychrome pottery tile in the Iznik style, Qajar Tehran, Iran, c.1890
Animal motifs were amongst the most prevalent and important in the repertoire of a Qajar tilemaker with naturalistic scenes featuring lions, deer, rams, horses, elephants and birds amongst the most popular. Fantastical beasts such as the simurgh and dragons also decorated palace walls, known from much earlier times. Lots 288 and 289 in the Farrow collection are wonderful examples of 19th century replacement tiles made for the Mongol architectural complex of Takht-i-Sulaiman in north-west Iran. Built as a summer palace for the Ilkhanid ruler Abaqa who ruled from 1265-1282 it was originally covered with lustre-painted tiles. The Qajar Dynasty was keen to preserve and honour its links with the ruling dynasties of Iran before them and made repairs and restorations to those buildings still standing. These two tiles, one depicting the fantastical simurgh and the other a dragon, illustrate the everyday visual repertoire of the Ilkhanid court which was heavily influenced by Chinese culture and symbolism. Another example of the dragon tile, also made in the Qajar period as a replacement tile, is in the David Collection, Copenhagen.
A final note on the Qajar tiles in the Farrow collection is the round tile decorated with the delightful scene of Prince Khosrow spying on Shirin as she bathes in a river, Lot 300. The scene is taken from the tragic romance by the 12th century Persian poet Nizami Ganjavi and here we see it incredibly sensitively portrayed in a combination of grisaille technique and cobalt and turquoise glaze, a technical feat in firing such a large tile. Khosrow is on his way to Armenia in search of his beloved Shirin and stumbles upon her bathing, the pair do not recognise each other as he is travelling in disguise and their search for each other continues. The painterly way in which the tile contains many figures in action, facing in various directions, and with overlapping elements shows influence from European painting and is a masterly portrayal of Qajar tile making skills.
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