The image of Muzaffar al-Din Shah, a souvenir of the royal trip to Warsaw, Poland

Golestan Palace Research Office

Homayun Khodadad / Faezeh Amin Dehghan

Saturday, April 19, 1873 AD, the beginning of the journeys of Qajar kings to Europe, Naser al-Din Shah travels to Europe with the efforts of Mirza Hussain Khan Sepahsalar. The beginning of Europe's journey was much more complicated than a simple royal determination, and the reasons for it should be sought on the one hand in the lack of success in domestic development and lack of progress in the eastern kingdoms, and in the dissemination of the knowledge and sciences of the west on the other hand, and this point that the Qajar ruler realized that there is a trend on the other side of the border that needs to be recognized and applied in the country. However, the wish for progress could not be achieved without considering the rights of the nation. But in the end, a range of developments crossed the geographical borders and entered Iran, not as a result of the kings' journey, but because of the Qajar era's placement in a precise ratio, in the historical highway of development and modernity of the 19th century. The understanding of the modern world and realizing this modernity by Qajar kings caused changes in the political and social relations of the country and the life of the royal citadel which included architecture and its related elements to the most private aspects (dressing of women in the harem, etc.).

Muzaffar al-Din Shah, like his father, had three trips to Europe, and the newspapers of the time had clichéd titles like: "... the effort of the king and his observations of the results and works of science, techniques, and innovations and "The industries of civilized nations and states...", which has been mentioned as the main reason for traveling to European countries.

In 1899 AD, Muzaffar al-Din Shah's first trip to Europe began. Hakim al-Mulk acknowledged that the mineral water of Conterkesville or Carlsbad is a unique medicine for the health of the king. In any case, in early spring 1898, the trip to Europe by borrowing from Russia state was decided, and the king was taken to this trip with a lot of companions, and almost all European countries officially welcomed the king. Only the British, who may have been dissatisfied with the issue of borrowing, did not show up for the official reception. The Shah did not go to England and returned to Tehran, which was three or four months after the first lunar year of 1317. It was during these trips that they borrowed twenty million manats from the Russians in order to meet the purchase orders of the king and paying loans that were received during this trip, and the entire revenue of northern Iran customs were used to pay this loan and the previous one.

In addition, Ein al-Dowleh increased the tax to compensate for the travel expenses. Scholars and intelligent people who were angry about the foreign loans, the establishment of British and Russian banks, the closure of domestic industries and trade and the increase of foreign influence, criticized the king and the court and  way of governing, and on the other hand in these eleven years of Muzaffar al-Din Shah reign, due to the establishment of new schools and local newspapers and Persian magazines and newspapers of India and Egypt, the people heard things from the students of the new schools and were informed about the European government arrangements and as a result they all wanted to change the situation. After the recent trip of king, his health condition has deteriorated and in this case, Hakim al-Mulk's advice has not been effective.

The purpose of this part is not to deal with the details of Muzaffar al-Din Shah's trip, which can be read in detail in his travelogues but reviewing an extremely beautiful work due to the style of execution and also the way of receiving knowledge about it, after about a century, whose description is readable and interesting.

During the expert reviewing and adding and arranging paintings in Hozkhaneh [1] of Golestan Palace, there is a need for applying changes in this collection from time to time, these changes are achieved through increasing of our knowledge about the desired collection. In this regard, in order to organize the painting repository, the examination of paintings r was started. After many investigations, a painting attracted our attention, an extremely beautiful work that was done with a unique skill. The method of combining the photo with manual editing of ink and water, which completed the picture of Muzaffar al-Din Shah², was based on the work of Rembrandt³ and the city of Warsaw - the capital of Poland, which was part of the Russian occupation at that time.

The initial impression was that this picture was most likely made in Germany. Because the signature did not show much relation to that geographical area (Poland) and the way of writing Warsaw's name was also in German, and also Mozaffar al-Din Shah during his first trip to Europe in 1900 AD had not stayed in Warsaw more than five days and it was difficult to imagine that such a worthy work was done in this limited time - of course, later, knowing the style used, i.e. photography with manual ink and water retouching, makes it possible to imagine the execution of this work during this period. With the investigation that was also carried out in the Golestan Palace Visual Documentation Center, an album called Atelier Rembrandt attracted attention, which included a collection of photos from the city of Warsaw and a single photo from Lazynki Palace [2]. The studio in question was located in Warsaw, and considering the signature of the studio at the Muzaffar al-Din Shah painting and also the German writing of the name of Warsaw in the text of the signature, it was concluded that this work is a combination of the art of photography and ink and water, which was created in Rembrandt's photography studio in the Warsaw city, Poland, or in Lazynki Palace, and this studio was definitely run by a person or persons who spoke German.

But regarding the date and year of this work, we came across an interesting point when examining the frame of the work - the two lower corners of the painting. In order to package the work and so that the painting is not damaged when it is placed vertically on the ground, two folded newspapers were attached to it in the form of multiple layers. The newspapers were separated from the frame for examination. These newspapers had the exact date of 1900 AD - the date of Muzaffar al-Din Shah's first trip to Europe - and were related to the city of Dresden [3] in Germany. In the examination of this work, considering the time of Muzafar al-Din Shah's presence in Warsaw and the date of the German language newspapers (one month after Shah's presence), which were used during the packaging stage, these questions arise whether this painting was done and framed in Rembrandt's studio in Warsaw and then the packaging has been done in Dresden?  Considering that Muzaffar al-Din Shah also stayed in the city of Dresden during the aforementioned trip - or these newspapers had made their way to the city of Warsaw and our German-speaking studio in the city of Warsaw, Poland, had used them for protection of the painting? A note was prepared as follows:

“On July 13, 2015, a newspaper was opened to wrap the photo and ink and water painting of Muzaffar al-Din Shah with the signature [4] of Rambrandt and the word Warschau [5]. The date of newspaper was 7/7/1900 AD, which is in complete agreement with the date of the first trip of Muzaffar al-Din Shah Qajar and according to the investigations, Muzaffar al-Din Shah on Thursday June 7 1900 until Monday June 11, 1900 stayed in Warsaw. The aforementioned newspaper is dated exactly one month later”.

Another remarkable point is how these newspapers were not separated from the painting during in this one century?! Hasn't this painting attracted the attention of Muzaffar al-Din Shah from the beginning and was kept in the warehouse?! Muzaffar al-Din Shah describes his arrival in Poland in his travel diaries dated Thursday, June 8, 1900 as follows:

"...When we arrived at the railroad station in Warsaw, the Russian Prince who was governor of Poland, Amir Tyski, along with all the military officials residing in Warsaw, were present in the station, including the soldiers and military people, then they paraded in front of us, me, the chancellor, prince and the admiral were sitting in one carriage, the rest of the members were in other carriages, and we went to the city. On the way, soldiers, horsemen, and gunners were lined up on the side of the streets, and all the people were cheering to pay respect to us. People were very happy when we entered. We also expressed kindness to everyone. They really received us very well. We crossed a bridge that was built on the Warsaw river. It is a very strange bridge, there were two steamships moving on the river, then we came to the Lazenski Palace, which was prepared for us. This palace is one of the buildings of Polish kings which has a strange park and palace. There are two lakes in front of this palace, which is as beautiful as the royal lake. It is very clean, the maroon trees are very big, I really wanted to see the leaves of this tree, and here I saw that it is as big as the elm trees of Iran. I saw a tree that I had not seen until today. It had red leaves, I asked Nasser Khaqan to bring a branch of it, I watched it, it was very strange and spectacular..." [6]

We believe that the photograph that was taken of Muzaffar al-Din Shah and became the basis of this valuable work was taken in Rembrandt's studio in Warsaw or in the Lasinki mansion. Pay attention to the memories of Muzaffar al-Din Shah on Friday June 9, 1900

"When we woke up in the morning, the admiral came and said that drills and maneuvers have been arranged outside the city and we should go there. Prince Farmanfarma is also there for the reception. I, Mr. Ashraf, the Prime Minister, the admiral, and the minister of the court sat in a carriage and were accompanied with some officials. The distance from this park to the point where the maneuver was held, was about a twenty-minute. After the maneuver, we went to the mansion with Mr. Ashraf the Chancellor and the Admiral in a carriage, and on the way, we came to Prince Farmanfarma's house and left a card. Then we came to the photographer's house that Moti al-Saltaneh had arranged to take our picture, he took a few pictures of me..."[7]

He also wrote on Sunday June 11, 1900:

"...the photographer who took our picture the day before yesterday had prepared the pictures and today brought them by Sani al-Saltaneh, he had taken very good pictures... They brought a few pieces of postcards with our photo, we signed them and sent them to Tabriz..."[8]

Muzaffar al-Din Shah spoke about this photographer again on Monday, July 2 1900, when he was in Kentrexville (France):

"...Today, the aforementioned old photographer from Warsaw brought our photos from Warsaw to counterkesvil. We tipped one thousand Manats..."[9]

Monday, June 12, 1900, was the day Muzaffar al-Din Shah left Warsaw:

This morning Admiral and Prince Amir Tyski, the Russian governor of Poland, came and said that the carriage is ready to go. We went to the railroad from the Lazenski Palace. The crowd was standing around the road like the day of the arrival, and the troops lined up along the side of the road in perfect order. I saw Prince Farmanfarma, who is a very noble and wise man, and gave him a medallion. Along with the admiral and other guests, we boarded the train and reached Alexandrov, which is the border between Russia and Germany … This is the place where Shah Shahid had dinner during his last trip and... Mirza Reza Khan Moyed al-Saltaneh, also brought Minister plenipotentiary of Berlin here. From here, we have to board the German train that we rented and go counterkesvil at our own expense. After one hour we left the Russian soil and entered Germany» [10]

Although in the picture of Muzaffar al-Din Shah, the combining photo and ink and water technique is used, but it does not reduce its valuable merits as a wonderful work of art and attracts the attention of every inquisitive mind that comes to Golestan Palace.