More images survive depicting Fath ‘Ali Shah (r.1797-1834) than of any other Qajar monarch, the result of an enormous effort to replicate images of the ruler for display throughout his realm.
As inscribed to a cartouche, this oil on canvas portrait appears to have been painted at the beginning of Fath ‘Ali Shah’s reign by Muhammad Sadiq, a court painter working from the 1740s into the 1790s. Sadiq was known for painting delicate facial features, including cherry lips and languid eyes, setting his subject in landscape backgrounds and rooms rendered in the European manner.
The 2ft 8in x 20in (81 x 51cm) portrait, in a gilt plaster frame, has a guide of £6000-8000 at Roseberys London on October 28.