Iran's Ministry of Cultural Heritage to Retrieve the Stolen Portrait of Qajar King Mozaffar ad-Din Shah
27 Jul 2022On Friday, July 15, 2022, after published reports announced that a portrait of Mozaffar ad-Din Shah was missing from the Golestan Palace in Tehran, it became the subject of intense speculation. The oil painting titled "Portrait of Mozaffar ad-Din Shah," done by Mirza Mohammadkhan Ghaffari, also known as "KamalolMolk," is the only remaining painting of the 5th king of the Qajar dynasty. In this portrait, the king is wearing a particular dress with medals and precious jewelry and a black hat with a jewel and white feather on it. In his diary, published in the book "Perfection of Art" by Ahmad Soheili Khansari, KamalolMolk said about this portrait, "I painted Mozaffar ad-Din Shah's portrait; he gave me a diamond ring."
According to the reports and written documents acquired from Iran's national archive (financial records of 1938) and also based on visual documents (a black and white picture depicting the painting installed above the entrance door at Berelian Hall), the painting is a property of the Golestan Palace. It is speculated that, between 1938 and 1982, the portrait was removed from the palace and put on sale outside Iran. Before 1933, concurrent with the early years of Pahlavi's regime, the portrait was collected together with other paintings of Qajar kings from the Berelian Hall and moved to a place called "the dormitory," also known as Naser ad-Din Shah's harem. However, there is no sign of the portrait in the 1982 records of the Ministry of Culture and Art. According to the visual documents of that period, besides Mozaffar ad-Din Shah's portrait, two other paintings were installed in the hall; a portrait of Ahmad Shah done by KamalolMolk currently installed at Aj Hall, and a portrait of Mohammadali Shah, the fate of which is unknown.
On April 10, 2000, Mozaffar ad-Din Shah's Portrait was sold at Christie's Islamic Art Auction for £44.650, which was about three times higher than its estimated price (£12000 – 18000). According to the recorded information on Christie's website, between 1901 and 1902, KamalolMolk executed this oil painting with the dimensions 80×105.5 cm. The artist's signature is also visible in its bottom left corner. The painting is currently preserved in the Al Sabah family collection in the Dar al-Athar al-Islamiyyah cultural center in Kuwait. On July 24, 2022, Director General of Museum and Historical-Cultural Properties Morteza Adibzadeh confirmed the reports about the missing portrait and mentioned that the ministry had taken measures to retrieve the artwork.
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