Abolala Soudavar, after inheriting the piece from his mother, Ezzat-Malek Soudavar, in 2014 Switzerland, gifted it to Harvard Art Museums in the same year.
This pen box is an incredibly detailed piece of work by Najaf ʿAli, well-known in the Qajar period of Iran for both his skill in lacquer painting and his self-made collection of pen boxes. These, as a canvas, make for compositionally interesting images as they are quite narrow and often have very rounded edges which then limits the imagery in how it can be framed.
Here, the focus is a woman in Indian clothing that is greatly embroidered, from her trousers to the veil trailing behind her feet. Women were often the passive subject of many paintings across cultures, including pre-Qajar Persian art, as animals were a depiction of motion and vitality. Before this period, birds in Persian paintings were often flying in the skies, considered part of the landscape and often a demonstration of the painter's emotions within the image. In this instance, there is a bird, noted as a duck, in front of the woman with a shrunk-in-scale deer, not flying nor in motion but rather a decorative piece. This is possibly a demonstration of the European influence that became notably prominent in this era.
The landscape behind the woman is also notable in how it demonstrates perspective, using a building and trees and mountains to create a sense of depth that was often understated when in other Persian art. Najaf ʿAli had taken much inspiration from European works, but at least in the stylisation of the woman and the manner of composition, he demonstrates how Persian paintings, in particular lacquer work, have their own beauty to appreciate.
What we are seeing in the picture provided is a pen box, also known as a qalamdan. These were historical portable cases used by caligraphers. The traditional qalamdan consists of two parts: an outer rounded shell and the removable lower part that holds the pens. Its slim form allowed it to be carried around with ease. During the Qajar era, owning a highly decorated qalamdan symbolised that the owner was a person of "the pen" (ahl-i qalam), denoting high literacy and administrative authority. These were often commissioned as gifts to diplomats, court members, and authors of the time.
