Drawing on paper, tinted and coloured with watercolours. This example shows a patron and a stall holder, perhaps a leather worker. The patron’s clothing indicates that he is well-to-do. He wears a lamb’s wool hat and a blue coat or ‘abba’. Mounted in a pair in a cardboard frame.
This painting is one of a series of watercolours which depict scenes that are well known in nineteenth century Persian painting and commercial photography. Judging by the fashions worn by the painting’s subjects they were probably painted between 1850 and 1875, quite possibly for sale to tourists. This example shows a patron and a stall holder, perhaps a leather worker. The patron’s clothing indicates that he is well-to-do. He wears a lamb’s wool hat and a blue coat or ‘abba’. Comparable bazaar scenes are illustrated in Henry Ballantine’s ‘Midnight Marches Through Persia’ (1879). The most applicable plate is ‘A Persian Bazar, Ispahan [sic]’ (p162).
