Golestan Palace hosting paintings by Qajar king

The UNESCO-registered Golestan Palace in downtown Tehran is currently hosting a selection of drawings and paintings created by the famed Qajar king Nasser ad-Din Shah (1821-1896).

According to Afarin Emami, the director of the World Heritage site, Nasser ad-Din Shah was fascinated by painting and drawing and showed his fascination in a variety of arts.

“He was the student of Abul-Hassan Khan Ghaffari Sani ul-Molk, and his works, like his master, follow the principles of naturalism, describing all the details he saw, and they are an amalgam of ancient Iranian styles influenced by the European ones,” she said in her interview with local media.

The selection of artworks is available to visit online on the palace’s official Instagram page.

Nasser ad-Din Shah is remembered as a different and effective ruler in certain areas. He introduced telegraph and postal services and launched Iran’s first newspaper. He visited Europe and was impressed with the technology he saw there.

Nasser ad-Din Shah sat on the throne for almost 50 years. His dictatorial style of governance and concession to foreign powers, including the British Empire, made him get assassinated by Mirza Reza Kermani who believed that Shah is a threat to the region by making it vulnerable to being conquered by European imperialism in the same way that India was.

MM/FM