The Training of the Persian Army

细节

The Training of the Persian Army
Persia, circa 1890

A presentation volume, ink and watercolour on cream paper, 12 lively miniatures depicting various aspects of army life including drills, fortifications, exercises and the sanitorium, many annotated in Persian, each mounted in card and identified beneath in Persian and French, (two with small tear), signed at the end by 'bandeh-i dargah Husain, Balai Nizam', blue velvet binding with silver-metal clasp, marbled paper doublures, miniatures 3¾ x 5in. (9.3 x 13.1cm.); folio 8 x 9½in. (20.3 x 24.2cm.): and QAWA'ID NIZAMIA, by Col. ?Maître Tesso?, the chief instructor of the Persian Army, a lithograph military manual containing 310 excercises for training soldiers following the Italian system, many diagrams and illustrations in the text, (occasional light creasing and staining) signed Muhammad Husayn b. the late Hajji Muhammad 'Ali, printed on the Government Press and dated AH 1240/1824-5 AD, paper covered boards, folio 12 x 8in. (30.5 x 20.4cm.) (2)

拍品专文

An illustrated manual used by the Russian officered Cossack Brigade. The inscriptions below are well-detailed; that on page 2 refers to General Kuropatkin, a Russian Cossack General stationed in Persia in the 1890s. This enables the otherwise undated manuscript to be fixed in a relatively short time period. The illustrations are intended to be informative, as for a presentation. The first leaf is particularly interesting. Originally conceived as the row of officers standing taking instruction, the figure of Nasr al-Din Shah Qajar, seated, his back turned to the viewer, has been painted by the same artist and pasted into the composition, raising the possibility of its having been made for presentation to the Shah. Further information on the Cossack brigade and General Kuropatkin can be found in:
Karemzadeh, Firouz: Russia and Britain in Persia 1864-1914; A Study in Imperialism, New Haven, Conn., 1968
Karemzadeh, Firouz, 'The Origins and Early Development of the Persian Cossack Brigade', in: The American Slavic and East European Review, 15, October 1956, pp.351-363
Kuropatkin, A.N., 'Dnernik A. N. Kuropatkin' (The Diary of A. N. Kuropatkin), Krasnvi Arkhiv, 2 (1922), Moscow, 1922