European Women in Persian Houses

Western Images in Safavid and Qajar Iran

Parviz Tanavoli

• Publisher: I.B. Tauris
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN: 9781784535070
• eBook ISBN: 9781838608484
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: World History
• Index: History

During the course of the 19th century, a relatively modern medium entered the private space of Iranian houses of the wealthy and became a popular feature of interior design in Persia. This was print media - lithographed images on paper and postcards - and their subject was European women. These idealised images adorned houses across the country throughout the Qajar period and this trend was particularly fashionable in Isfahan and mural decorations at the entrance gate of the Qaysarieh bazaar. The interest in images of Western women was an unusual bi-product of Iran's early political and cultural encounters with the West. In a world where women were rarely seen in public and, even then, were heavily veiled, the notion of European women dressed in - by Iranian standards - elegant and revealing clothing must have sparked much curiosity and some titillation among well-to-do merchants and aristocrats who felt the need to create some association, however remote, with these alien creatures. The introduction of such images began during the Safavid era in the 17th century with frescoes in royal palaces.
This spread to other manifestations in the form of tile work and porcelain in the Qajar era, which became a testament to the popularity of this visual phenomenon among Iran's urban elite in the 19th and early 20th century. Parviz Tanavoli, the prominent Iranian artist and sculptor, here brings together the definitive collection of these unique images. European Women in Persian Houses will be essential for collectors and enthusiasts interested in Iranian art, culture and social history.

PART I

Zan-e Farangi

(Farangi Woman)

From late 16^th century onward, Iran drew the growing attention of Europeans and, as time went by, the number of Europeans traveling to Iran increased, to such an extent that, by the mid 17^th century, the capital of Iran – Isfahan – hosted visitors from nearly all regions of Europe. Although the foreign population of Isfahan during the 17^th century was almost exclusively male, on the basis of secondary oral and visual sources a general notion was prevalent that images of Farangi women were in great demand. The importation of images of European female nudes in print and paint, beginning around 1600, may have sparked enthusiasm for Iranians to depict the European woman.³

The Farangi woman (zan-e farangi) herself, was an object of desire, too, appearing in some Iranian literature of the 17^th century.⁴ As Amy Landau describes below, long before the Western Orientalists, the Safavids eroticized and sexualized European females.

"The Safavid evidence reverses the traditional orientalist 'East-West' dialectic in which the 'East' is understood as the passive feminine recipient of the gaze belonging to the all-powerful masculine 'West.' In other words, the eroticized and exoticized woman has been discussed as an orientalist motif, generally under the rubric of the odalisque, the ubiquitous sex slave and object of male sexual fantasy. Images of reclining women in the seraglio or staged in another domestic setting are theorized as objects upon which the Western male projected his fears, anxieties, and desires. Much literature has been dedicated to building this argument within the historical context of Western imperialism and the power imbalance between Europe and America, on one hand, and Asia on the other. The Safavid material seriously questions our assumption of who sexualizes and mythologizes whom and suggests highly permeable and constantly shifting boundaries of the erotic and exotic 'other.' The evidence presented in this article leaves little doubt that the Safavid male subjugated the European female to his own gaze long before Western imperialism."⁵

Occidentalism

I use the term Occidentalism (the opposite of Orientalism) to indicate the taste of a specific period concerning an alien culture of a particular people. But it was not as widespread in Iran as Orientalism was in the West.⁶

Orientalist taste introduced a Western audience to a permissible world of fantasy: exotic scenes of people of North Africa and the Middle East, occupying a picturesque world that was novel and different from their own, with different social rules. In Iran, Occidentalist taste played a similar role: exciting images of an alien people showed a fascinating and foreign social environment. In both cases, this imagined alien world reflected in some way on the viewer's own home environment, confirming prejudices, exciting forbidden desires, or offering a critique of the status quo.

French and, later, British artists pioneered Orientalist art, and some traveled to Middle Eastern and North African countries. Their art typically focused on the people of these foreign lands, addressing imagined scenarios of exotic cliché. Muslim men dressed in long robes and exotic turbans and other headdresses in the bazaars, sometimes selling women and sometimes Oriental rugs. Women were a particularly obsessive focus of Orientalist painters, imagined as sexually available nude concubines, lounging in pseudo-harem surroundings.

Occidentalist taste in Iran followed a similar approach, with widespread interest in the people and scenes of Europe, which in turn were exotic and strange. Again, women were of particular interest, for the great novelty of their different appearance, elaborate fashions, and imagined behavior. Any imagery of this nature – either in the format of a newspaper advertisement or postcard, or as a utilitarian object adorned with female images – that reached Iran in those days was treasured and considered an oeuvre d'art, and was cherished as a novelty of the time (reflecting both works of Iranian artists and Iranian buyers of European prints).

Iran in the Late 19^th Century

It will be helpful at this point to provide an image of Iran in the late 19^th century in general, and then to describe the social structure of Isfahan in particular.

Throughout the 19^th century, Iran went through major political, social, and economic changes. The increasing overlap between Iranian territory and European interests, and the reports that occasional Iranian travelers brought back from Europe, were major topics of discussion at that time.

The defeat of Iran by Russia in the earlier part of the 19^th century, and the resulting loss of vast territories, warned Iranians that the Empire of Persia was no longer invulnerable and could not survive as in former times. Also, it revealed that the Persian army could not withstand the modern mechanized forces of its northern neighbor. The growing ambitions of many European economies meant that Iran was treated as a convenient ready market for foreign manufactures, and indeed cheap mass-produced imports flooded Iran throughout the 19^th century This had an immediate and dramatic impact on consumer habits and on most sectors of industry It was clear that Iran needed to respond. The emergence of a few men from the court and the government became instrumental in establishing the first layer of a vast reform program. Among them were 'Abbas Mirza (1789-1833), the Crown Prince of Fath Ali Shah (r. 1797-1834), and Amir-Kabir (1810–1852), the prime minister of Naser al-Din Shah (r. 1848-1896). 'Abbas-Mirza was instrumental in forming a new Western-style army, and under his rule printing presses and newspapers came into existence.

It was through the efforts of Amir-Kabir that the college modelled after Western education–Daral-Fonun–was founded in 1851. Students were trained in many strategic disciplines, and some were sent to Europe for further studies. On their return these men were given influential positions, and eventually took part in the country's reform. The modernization of Iran soon had an impact on other aspects of life, including social behavior. The situation of women was unchanged, however, and had to wait for several decades to begin to catch up with the rest of society.

In those days, the news that European women appeared in public with their faces and hair unveiled was perhaps the most noteworthy item of gossip. Iranians were particularly struck by such innovations when reports were accompanied by realistic pictures and postcards of beautiful European women with uncovered heads, ornate clothes, jewelry, and makeup (very different from the stylized depictions of women that Iranian artists produced). This was because, at that time, all Iranian women concealed their faces and bodies with various kinds of veils and coverings when they left the privacy of their homes. Concerning this, Ruhollah Khaleqi wrote: "In those days [late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries] all women wore the black or dark blue chador. The most modern-minded wore a large veil, called pichah, over their faces, while the old-fashioned ones employed the ru-bandi (face covering). The former was short and the latter was long and white. Those who wore the ru-bandi also wore ankle-length baggy trousers bound tightly at the ankles and known as chaqchur (plate 1). When people went out for a walk, one side of the street was for men and the other for women. Even husbands had to go on one side, while their wives walked on the other. If there were public performances, women were not permitted to attend or participate."⁷ The veiling of women was so important that anyone who spoke of doing away with it was called a heretic. From that time until 1936, when Reza Shah's queen and daughters participated unveiled in ceremonies at a boy's college and the removal of the veil became officially sanctioned, all efforts to end the institution of purdah met with violent opposition in Iran. The period during which the prints featuring beautiful women were in fashion in Isfahan was concurrent with the period discussed above.

The birth of lithography in the late 18^th century and the birth of photography in the mid 19^th century in Europe undoubtedly had a great impact in the modernization of Ifan. only two decades after the birth of lithography, and less than a decade after the development of photography, these two media found their way to Iran, causing great changes, by providing sudden access to the visual culture of other nations, as well as speeding communications around Iran itself. Before examining the effects of these two media on images of women, it is necessary to go back one or two centuries to see how such images had traditionally appeared in Persian houses.

The Appearance of European Women in Persian Painting

Idealistic images of women have always been admired by Persians. Although not much is known about earlier presentations of such imagery in ordinary houses, more evidence is preserved in royal palaces.

For centuries, royal palaces have been decorated with figural images reflecting the whole community of the buildings' inhabitants: not only kings, but soldiers, servants and entertainers, and even guests. These images depicted people, and increased the grandeur of the king's power. This visual tradition stretches far back, at least to the stone reliefs of Persepolis, and allows today's visitors to see an ancient echo of a once-lively place. Both the Ali Qapu (the palace of Shah 'Abbas I, r. 1588-1629, and Shah 'Abbas II, r. 1642–1666) and the Chehel Sotun (the palace of Shah 'Abbas II) in Isfahan are dramatic examples. The walls of the Chehel Sotun are adorned with images of beautiful women either alone (plate 2) or in the company of a young man, pouring wine or playing a musical instrument.⁸ These remind us of the convivial pleasures of Safavid Isfahan.

European painting traditions were introduced to Iran by European travelers, either t...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Contents
• Preface
• Part I: Zan-e Farangi (Farangi Woman)
• Part II: The Return of Images of Farangi Women in Iran
• Part III: The Iranian Contribution
• Plates
• eCopyright