A POLYCHROME-PAINTED ENAMELLED GOLD PENDANT WITH A QAJAR MAIDEN Qajar Iran, 19th century

A POLYCHROME-PAINTED ENAMELLED GOLD PENDANT WITH A QAJAR MAIDEN Qajar Iran, 19th century The gold-sheet pendant worked in the shape of a cusped palmette or escutcheon, the lower border enhanced with later-added, leaf-shaped yellow metal charms with small seed pearls, the front decorated with a courtly Qajar maiden's portrait wearing encrusted bazubands, epaulettes, and several strands of pearls and jewellery on her head, the back presenting the typical Persian literary topos of the rose and nightingale (gol-o-bolbol), a symbol often identified with eternal lovers, both the front and back enamelled in polychromes, ca. 7.4cm long, 8gr. Provenance: Formerly in the Benyaminoff Collection, New York, USA; On loan at the L.A. Mayer Memorial Museum, Jerusalem, 1987 - 1998; Sotheby's London, 30 April 1998, lot 72. Literature: Rachel Hasson, Later Islamic Jewellery, Jerusalem, 1987, pp. 28 - 29, fig. 30; Schmuck der Islamischen Welt, exhibition catalogue, Frankfurt, 1988, p. 88, fig. no. 2/30Click here to share: