SIGNED ALLAHVERDI AFSHAR, SECOND HALF 18TH CENTURY

Though Allahverdi Afshar was one of the most celebrated painters of the late Zand and early Qajar period little is known about his life and very few signed works appear to have survived. A rare exception is a portrait of 'Abbas Mirza, dated 1238, in the Museum of Oriental Art, Moscow. He came from the famous Afshar family of painters of Orumiyeh and was the father of the painter Abu'l-Hassan Afshar (Muhammad 'Ali Karimzadeh Tabrizi, The Lives and Art of Old Painters of Iran, Vol. 1, London, 1985, p.84).