Description

The book with a late 19th divan poetry includes several stories, with love and also racy and pornographic content. It was written by Mirza ali Ashtiani, also known as Meykadeh, meaning “Tavern” (1838-1904), from a prominent Persian family. The book was written as a reply on a ban on drinking, enforced by the first chief of police of Iran, Antoine de Montfort (1878 – 1916), who got appointed to the job after meeting the Shah of Qajar Iran, Naser al-Din (1831 –1896) in Austria, on shah’s visit to Europe.

The publication contains a series of unusually executed illustrations with charming scenes with various wild animals, species of birds, a camel feeding her calf and a modern school scene with male and female students, but also other, somehow more uncommon motifs, such as a violent murder scene, decapitated bull, a sexual act between three people, a half-naked young man with erected penis lying in a garden, a man getting an enema and a man inserting fingers in his anus (Click here for more photos – Please do not open the link, if you are under 18 years old or do not wish to see adult content).

We could not find any examples on Worldcat. Marzolph mentions in his Narrative Illustration in Persian Lithographed Books four institutional examples and one example in a private collection, possibly identical to the present book.

References: Ulrich Marzolph, Narrative Illustration in Persian Lithographed Books, 2001, p. 237,