ZAND PERSIA, LATE 18TH CENTURY

This is a either a copy of a watercolour portrait of Karim Khan smoking a nargileh by Muhammad Sadiq of around 1770-79 which is in the Musée du Louvre, Paris or a study of one of his retinue from an oil painting attributed to the same artist. In the watercolour he is wearing a tall domed Zand cap wound around with white cloth. In the oil painting a kinsman, remarkably similar in appearance to Karim Khan is shown in the left hand corner, wearing a patterned turban like the one in the present painting. (Diba L.S. ed.: Royal Persian Paintings, the Qajar Epoch 1885-1925, pp.150-3, New York, 1998)