February 2014 | BIPS Travel Grant

Thanks to a generous Travel Grant from The British Institute of Persian Studies (BIPS), I arranged a trip to Iran in October 2014 to carry out research on Qajar pink enamelled artworks (19th-20th centuries). The obvious start of my research had to be in Tehran, the Qajars’ capital since its early beginnings with Agha Mohammad Khan (r.1794-1797). I spent six days in Tehran, four of which were solely dedicated to the study of the National Jewellery Treasury, housed within the Bānk-e Markazi-ye Jomhouri-ye Eslāmi-ye Irān (Central Bank of I.R. Iran), and the Golestān Palace, the Qajar rulers’ residence in Tehran, completely clad in pink enamelled kāshi (majolica tiles). Whilst I was not allowed to take pictures at the National Jewellery Treasury, I created written records for numerous artworks on view for reference in my future studies. I am very grateful to BIPS for allowing me to make use of their accommodation in Tehran, and especially to Maryam Emami for arranging my stay there.

During my study, I read that translucent pink enamel was usually achieved by mixing a lead oxide-potassia-silica base with a minimal amount of colloidal gold (Wood, 1999). To verify this assumption, I arranged a meeting with Mitra Etezadi, specialist in conservation for the National Museum of Iran, Tehran, during which we discussed the specific composition of the minā-ye naqqāshi (painted enamel) employed by Qajar craftsmen. Together we visited the Ᾱbgineh Glassware and Ceramics Museum. At the entrance, a display case showed all the primary materials used to obtain coloured enamels and the colours achieved by their mixings. And indeed, the formula for pink enamel had 0.1% of gold in it! Subsequently, my research led me to Shiraz to meet Mehdi Arjmand, PhD student at Shiraz University, who is writing a dissertation on Qajar gemmological and alchemical treatises. We further discussed the chemical composition of the translucent pink enamel, and I also questioned him on its origins and whether he had come across in his studies the potential reason as to why its production became so popular after the Qajar dynasty’s establishment. I carried on to Isfahan, the magnificent Safavid capital of Shah Abbas I (1571-1629), driven by curiosity to discover whether Safavid craftsmen were already familiar with and had been using translucent pink enamel. In terms of jewellery, my research has been not as productive as I would have hoped. However, I was absolutely delighted to find out that several kāshi ornamenting both the Lotf Allāh and the Shāh mosques were attempting to reproduce the colour pink!

In Isfahan, I also had the chance to admire a real apotheosis of the colour pink at the Armenian Vank Cathedral, New Jolfa quarter. Numerous paintings and tiles involved rose tones, and almost every manuscript I was able to analyse in the affiliated Armenian ethnographic museum showed the predominance of the pink palette. The strong presence of Armenians since at least the 14th century in several Iranian cities, such as Tabriz, Isfahan, and Tehran (where the Armenian National Museum was established in 2008) does not come as a surprise; however, the cultural and profound artistic exchanges between the Iranian and Armenian craftsmen and communities have not been thoroughly addressed yet. After my visit to Isfahan, I intend to carry out more research in this field to try to understand whether the origins and popularity of pink enamel in the Qajar epoch might have bloomed from contacts with Armenian craftsmen and their traditional arts.

This trip to Iran has been an incredible journey of discovery for me and I cannot but be extremely grateful to BIPS and its generous grant for making it possible. I gathered a wealth of precious photographic material, often unavailable in Western publications; I had the good fortune to meet and contest my ideas with Iranian scholars, carrying out research in the same area of interest; and new hypotheses made their way into my research, such as the potential inter-cultural Irano-Armenian connection, which deserves to be addressed by a more thorough academic inquiry.