A Portrait of a Dancing Girl, signed by Muhammad Baqir, Late Zand, Persia, dated A.H. 1192/A.D. 1778

Oil on canvas, signed 'ya Baqir al-'Ulum', and dated in cream in the upper section

Published: Ames, F., "A Kashmir paradigm: Qajar and Zand Painting as evidence for shawl dating", Hali 139, March-April 2005, pp.70-71.

In general the picture is in reasonably good condition. It is structurally sound. It has had two campaigns of treatment in the past. The more recent campaign is very evident in discoloured retouchings throughout the painting. The canvas has been lined as the canvas has sustained small damages. For example, and most noticeably; in the area at the top edge of the painting and extending down towards the head; along the left hand side of the painting and above the right hand of the figure – where there is quite a large damage. This painting may have been mounted within an architectural feature such as arch, as was the tradition. It is possible that some of the damage towards the outer edges may have occurred during its removal from the wall. The paint retains much of its original colour and detail. The hair is original, although there are discoloured retouchings as stated above. The painting has undergone a light cleaning but would benefit from even further treatment, as viewed.
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The artist Muhammad Baqir is known as one of the superlative masters of his time; flourishing from the 1740s to the 1800s, he, like his contemporaries, was an extraordinarily versatile artist who worked in oil, water-colour, lacquer, enamel and on murals.  In the company of such gifted artists as Muhammad Sadiq (1740s-90s), Muhammad Zaman III (1750s-90s) Abu'l Hasan Ghaffari (1780s-90s) and Mirza Baba (1789-1810), Muhammad Baqir made a lasting impression on the Persian arts, impacting on the decorative vocabulary and the stylistic features of the next generation of artists under the Qajar aegis.  This monumental portrait is one of a very few of the period that inspired the following generation of patrons and artists under the Qajars to produce similar portraits to act as politically loaded messages as well as simply decorative works of art.

Whilst the European influence is evident not just in the monumental size of the portrait but also in the recession of the background, the portrait keeps very much to the Persian ideal of beauty, with her rose-bud lips, pointed chin, sleepy eyes and long dark hair. There is a deep sensuality in her pose, and in the promise of her eyes; this psychological and emotional impact is a distinctive feature of Zandi portraiture with its interest in the emotive. Moreover the highly decorative elements in the richly rendered and luxuriously patterned textiles, as well as the two-dimensionality of the subject identify the painting as distinctly oriental and mark it as a masterpiece of the Zand period.