Portrait of a Bakhtiary

Description

At the commencement of his career, as a painter, Semiromy was at the service of Zel-Al-Soltan’s court in Esfahan. During this period, he was commissioned to execute several portraits of the governor Zel-Al-Soltan and some important people of Esfahan.
Beside painting portraits, he was a real master in the field of painting on pen-boxes and other lacquer works that is popular under the name: “papier-mache”. In this field, on the contrary to the prevailed style of using “water-color” by nearly all the painters, Semiromy had his own personal techniques of using “oil-colors”. Therefore, his works are so distinctive and exquisite that are easily recognizable, even without bearing his signature.

After the time of the constitutional revolution that led to the “Conquest of Tehran”, the heads of the Bakhtiary tribes became more powerful and gained the governorship of Esfahan province and many important positions in the government.
This is the period that many portraits of the Bakhtiary leaders, including this one, were created by the most prominent painter of Esfahan, Semiromy.
This painting is the portrait of sardar-Arfa, a Bakhtiary noble-man.
He is wearing a local Bakhtiary hat and the outfit is in the style of the last years of the Qajar era.
Considering the mild colors used in the painting and the artist’s technique of rendering the face, especially the lively eyes with a meaningful glance, one would suggest that this is a typical portraiture executed by Semiromy. The painting has the signature that reads: The work of Semiromy 303 dated 13.
It is worthy to indicate that, all the signatures by Semiromy have the number 303. To explain the meaning of this number, no satisfactory reason has been suggested so far.