Lot 42
Estimate: £3,000 - £5,000
Auction: 11 December 2024 from 10:00 GMT
signed centre left in the tree, the papier mache panel profusely lacquered in polychrome and gilt, with a central rectangular panel depicting figures within a palace interior, enjoying drinking and eating and other courtly pleasures, elegant flowering trees in the background, floral borders, inner margin with cartouches containing further scenes of courtly pleasures, framed; this lot includes a second panel, unsigned, the panel profusely lacquered in polychrome and gilt, depicting a palace interior with figures eating, drinking and dancing, flowering trees in the background, the border decorated with cusped cartouches and roundels with further figures and animals, framed
each 60cm x 44cm
Muhammad Mahdi, known as Mirza Aqa Imami naqqa-bashi Isfahani, studied in majmal' al-sanayi' in Tehran and returned to Isfahan where he had a workshop and trained many painters. He worked in watercolour, lacquer, miniature painting, illumination and leather covers. He died in AH 1344/ AD 1955. See M. A Karinzadeh Tabriz, The Lives and Art of Old Painters in Iran, vol. 3, 1991, pp. 1269-71.