Title:
" The Shah of Persia " Naser al-Din Shah Qajar (July 16, 1831 – May 1, 1896) (Persian: ناصرالدین شاه قاجار Nāṣira’d-Dīn Shāh Qājār) was the King and Shah of Persia from September 17, 1848 to May 1, 1896 when he was assassinated. He was the son of Mohammad Shah Qajar and the third longest reigning monarch king in Persian history after Shapur II of the Sassanid Dynasty and Tahmasp I of the Safavid Dynasty. He had sovereign power for close to 50 years and was also the first Persian monarch to ever write and publish his diaries.
He was in Tabriz when he heard of his father's death in 1848, and he ascended to the Peacock Throne with the help of Amir Kabir.
Though Nasser al-Din had early reformist tendencies, he was dictatorial in his style of government. He persecuted Bábís and Bahá'ís, and this increased when a deranged Bábí, seeking revenge for his martyred friend, attempted to assassinate him in 1852. He was the first modern Persian monarch to visit Europe in 1873 and then again in 1878 (when he saw a Royal Navy Fleet Review), and finally in 1889 and was reportedly amazed with the technology he saw there. During his visit to the United Kingdom in 1873, Nasser al-Din Shah was appointed by Queen Victoria a Knight of the Order of the Garter, the highest English order of chivalry. He was the first Persian monarch to be so honoured. His travel diary of his 1873 trip has been published in Persian, German and Dutch.
In 1890 he met British Gerald Talbot and signed a contract with him giving him the ownership of Iranian Tobacco Industry, but he later was forced to cancel the contract after Ayatollah Mirza Hassan Shirazi issued a Fatwa that made farming, trading and consuming tobacco as Haram (forbidden). It even affected the Shah's personal life as his wives did not allow him to smoke.This was not the end of his attempts to give advantages to Europe because he later gave the ownership of Iranian Customs Incomes to Paul Julius Reute.
Nasser al-Din introduced a number of western innovations to Persia, including a modern postal system, train transport, a banking system and newspaper publishing. He was the first Iranian to be photographed and was a patron of Photography who had himself photographed hundreds of times.
Nasser al-Din was assassinated by Mirza Reza Kermani, a follower of Jamal al-Din al-Afghani, when he was visiting and praying in the shrine of Shah-Abdol-Azim. It is said that the revolver used to assassinate him was old and rusty, and had he worn a thicker overcoat, or been shot from a longer range, he would have survived the attempt on his life. Shortly before his death he is reported to have said "I will rule you differently if I survive!" Nasser al-Din Shah's assassin was prosecuted by the defense Minister Nazm ol Doleh.
Mohammad Hassan Khan Etemad al-Saltaneh, Pen and Ink drawing by Nasser al-Din Shah, 10 November 1873, Niavaran, TehranHe was buried in the Shah-Abdol-Azim Cemetery, in Rayy near Tehran, where he was assassinated. His one-piece marble tombstone, bearing his full effigy, is now kept in the Golestan Palace Museum in Tehran and is renowned as a master piece of Qajar era sculpture.
Nasser al-Din Shah was very interested in painting and photography. He was talented in painting and even though had not been educated, was an expert in Pen and Ink drawing. There are several Pen and Ink drawings which are remained from him. He was one of the first Persians who Photographed and was a patron of Photography. Also he founded a Photograph Studio in Golestan Palace in Tehran.
He was a Poet too. 200 couplets of his verses were recorded in the Preface of the book Majma'ul Fusahā, a book by Reza Quli Khan Hedayat about Poets of Qajar Period . Nasser al-Din Shah was interested in History and Geography and there were many books on these topics in his library. He also knew French and English but he couldn’t speak them fluently.
Many attributed the book Hekāyāt Pir Va Javān (The tale of the old and the young) to him which is one of the first Persian stories written in modern European style. It is a story about 3 people, a child, a young and an old man followed by a narrator, a middel aged, in a day of spring.
Date:
1894
This print is over 110 years old.
Condition:
It is printed on heavy weight paper with a cream tone. It is in excellent condition. This print has been custom mounted on white mountboard with Acid Free materials. It is ready to be matted & framed.
Image Size:
8.5 inches by 6.5 inches Woodcut — formally known as xylography — is a relief printing artistic technique in printmaking in which an image is carved into the surface of a block of wood, with the printing parts remaining level with the surface while the non-printing parts are removed, typically with gouges. The areas to show 'white' are cut away with a knife or chisel, leaving the characters or image to show in 'black' at the original surface level. The block is cut along the grain of the wood (unlike wood engraving where the block is cut in the end-grain). In Europe beechwood was most commonly used; in Japan, a special type of cherry wood was used. The surface is covered with ink by rolling over the surface with an ink-covered roller (brayer), leaving ink upon the flat surface but not in the non-printing areas.
THE ENGRAVER'S ART
How
did these remarkable craftsmen, the wood engravers, work - The block,
which was steadied by the thumb and fingers of the left hand, lay on
top of a leather bag filled with sand. During daylight hours, the bag
rested on a bench close to a window, but at night, an oil or gas lamp
provided
illumination. The engraver's head, with a watchmaker's
magnifying glass clipped to one eye, would be bent down near to the
block while the thumb and fingers of the right hand gently pushed the
sharp front edge of the cutting tool - the graver - to shave away
narrow slivers of wood so as to leave whites and tints between the
darker lines of the picture.If we look through a magnifying glass at
these magnificent wood-cuts, we
must marvel at the skill and
patience of those wood engravers and regret that such artistic
craftsmanship is now almost lost for ever.
ATTENTION COLLECTORS
This Print remains in its ORIGINAL
CONDITION since it has NEVER BEEN
FRAMED or exposed to damaging ultra violet
rays of the sun.
It has been stored flat & protected from damage
& moisture.
This print will make a special
addition to any art collection !
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