“Dressed in the Costume of His Country:” Portraits of Persians Done in the West, 1600–1842

Poster design by Razman Goudarzi

The event recording is now available:

The Alireza Ahmadian Lecture in Iranian and Persianate Studies presents: “Dressed in the Costume of His Country:” Portraits of Persians Done in the West, 1600–1842 on December 3, 2022.

As a class, portraits of Persians who travelled to the West during the Safavid and early Qajar period (early 17^th-early 19^th century) have received little attention. This lecture brings together a set of images — drawings, paintings, etchings, lithographs and even a silhouette — of Persians, done in Boston, Geneva, London, Paris, Prague, Saratoga Springs, St. Petersburg, Vienna and Washington DC, between 1601 and 1842. Some of the subjects were high-ranking individuals who were members of the élite class while others were from modest backgrounds. All were on a mission of one sort or another and portraiture, in the days before photography, commemorated their visits to distant capitals, offering us a rare glimpse at the dress, accoutrements and regalia worn by these visitors to foreign lands. Subjects of fascination for both contemporary artists and a well-informed public, intrigued by all things Persian and able to follow the movements of these travelers in the European and American press, the sitters in these works left an indelible mark in the consciousness of Western observers, only a few of whom ever journeyed themselves to the Land of the Lion and the Sun.

Guest Speaker

Daniel T. Potts is Professor of Ancient Near Eastern Archaeology and History at the Institute for the Study of the Ancient World, New York University. His lifelong fascination with and love of Iranian history and archaeology began with his first visit to Iran in 1973 and has led him to work on a wide range of topics ranging in time from prehistory to the modern era. He is the author of The Archaeology of Elam: Formation and Transformation of an Ancient Iranian State (Cambridge, 1999, 2nd ed. 2016), Nomadism in Iran: From Antiquity to the Modern Era (Oxford, 2014), Persia Portrayed: Envoys to the West, 1600-1842 (Mage, 2022) and A Nook in the Temple of Fame: French Military Officers in Persian Service, 1806-1827 (Mage, 2023). He was also the editor of The Oxford Handbook of Ancient Iran (Oxford, 2013) and Agreeable News from Persia: Iran in the Colonial and Early Republican American Press, 1712-1848 (Springer, 2022). He received his AB (1975) and PhD (1980) at Harvard, and is a Consulting Editor for the Encyclopaedia Iranica, a Corresponding Member of the German Archaeological Institute and ISMEO (Associazione Internazionale di Studi sul Mediterraneo e l’Oriente) and a Corresponding Fellow of the British Academy.

Discussants

Layla Diba is an independent scholar, art advisor and curator. She has been Director and Chief Curator of the Negarestan Museum in Teheran (1975–79), art advisor for the Private Secretariat of HM Queen Farah of Iran, and Hagop Kevorkian Curator of Islamic Art at the Brooklyn Museum of Art. From 1994 to 2006, she was Visiting Professor of Islamic Art at Bard Graduate Center. In 2006, Dr. Diba was invited to develop programming and strategy for the future Guggenheim Abu Dhabi Museum and to serve on the Museum’s Asian Art Council and Middle East Focus Group. She has curated the landmark The Qajar Epoch: Royal Persian Paintings exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum of Art in 1998, exhibitions at the Lehmann-Maupin and Leila Taghinia Milani Heller Galleries in New York and served as an advisor to the Doris Duke Foundation. Her recent publications include Turkmen Silver Ornaments from the Marshall and Marilyn Wolf Collection (Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2011). In 2013 she co-curated Iran Modern, the first major exhibition devoted to Iranian Modern Art for the Asia Society Museum, New York (September 5, 2013- January 5, 2014) and co-edited the accompanying publication. Dr. Diba holds a B.A. from Wellesley College and an M.A. and Ph.D. from the Institute of Fine Arts of New York University. Her articles, including over 50 essays on Iranian art, have appeared in numerous scholarly publications. Dr. Diba sits on the Board of The Soudavar Memorial Foundation and of the National Museum of Asian Art in Washington. She is also a collector of Persian and Islamic art and a benefactor and advocate for numerous Persian cultural causes.

Willem Floor studied development economics and non-western sociology, as well as Persian, Arabic and Islamology from 1963-67 at the University of Utrecht (the Netherlands). He received his doctoral degree from the University of Leiden in 1971. Since 1983, Dr. Floor was employed by the World Bank as an energy specialist, however, after his retirement in 2002, he has dedicated his time to the study of the social and political history of Iran, and has published extensively throughout this time. Many know him for his series of 10 books on the Persian Gulf, published from 2006 to 2017. His other recent books include Astrakhan: A Man of Two Worlds: Pedros Bedik in Iran, 1670–1675 (2013), The Monetary History of Iran: From the Safavids to the Qajars (Iran and the Persianate World) (2013), History of Bread in Iran (2015), Studies in the History of Medicine in Iran (2018), Kermanshah: City and Province, 1850–1945 (2018), Salar al-Dowleh: A Delusional Prince and Wannabe Shah (2018), Persian Pleasures: How Iranians Relaxed Through the Centuries with Food, Drink and Drugs (2019). Willem Floor has also published several translations.