69 THE PERSIAN AMBASSADOR ASKER KHAN
FRANCE (PARIS), DATED 1808
coming into the picture, and a small face inked on his collar.
BY JACQUES-LOUIS DAVID (1748-1825) HEIGHT: 10.2 CM WIDTH: 7.2 CM
Pen and black ink on paper. Inscribed, signed and dated by the artist on the left of the sheet: Croquis d’Asker Kan ambassadeur/ du roi de Perse en 1808/par David “Sketch of Asker Khan ambassador of the King of Persia in 1808 by David” In this elegant bust portrait of Asker Khan, the ambassador is depicted facing left with a full beard and wearing a tall and impressive turban. His shoulder is inscribed with numerals. On the reverse of the sheet, turned in orientation from portrait to landscape, is the swiftly sketched face of a man with a moustache, the brim of his hat just
Asker Khan Afshar was a Persian ambassador who was sent to Paris during the brief period of the Franco-Persian alliance, formed between the French Empire of Napoleon I and Fath-Ali Shah, the second Qajar Shah of Persia, against Russia and Great Britain from 1807-1809. While the Shah needed help against the Russian menace on the northern frontier of Iran following the annexation of Eastern Georgia in 1801, Napoleon was motivated by his long cherished dream of invading British India, using Iran as both an ally and a gateway, and joining forces with Tipu Sultan to expel the British. Following the visit of the Iranian envoy Mirza Mohammed Reza-Qazvini to the court of Napoleon, then based in Tilsit in eastern Prussia, the alliance was formalised with the Treaty of Finckenstein on 4th May 1807 and ratified a week later on 10th May.
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Asker Khan arrived in Paris on 20th July 1808 and met Napoleon on 4th September 1808 at Château de Saint-Cloud, an event recorded in a drawing by Benjamin Zix. Asker Khan left France in April 1810, as Persia in turn allied with Great Britain, France’s enemy in the Napoleonic Wars. This drawing must have been done soon after he became ambassador. Its small size and the images on the reverse suggest that it comes from David’s pocket book. The drawing has been seen by Pierre Rosenberg and Louis-Antoine Prat, the authors of Jacques Louis David, 1749-1825: Catalouge raisonné des dessins, 2002, and is accepted by them as the work of David. An oil portrait of Asker Khan by Césarine Davin-Mirvault, a painter of portraits and miniatures and a student of David as well as Suvée and Augustin, is at the Château de Versailles.