User:HistoryofIran/Aliquli Jabbadar

Aliquli Jabbadar was an Iranian artist, one of the first to have incorporated European influences in the traditional Safavid-era miniature painting. He is known for his scenes of the Safavid courtly life, especially his careful rendition of the physical setting and of details of dress.

Biography
Little is known about the background, life and paintings of Jabbadar. He is rarely mentioned in chronicles, whose information differ from each other. His name "Aliquli" means "slave of Ali", who is considered by Shia Muslims to be the first Imam. However, the name does not necessarily mean that he was from a Muslim background. Some authors consider him to be of Georgian descent, specifically due to the Georgian inscriptions in his two paintings "Shah Soleyman and his courtesans" and "The shah, the mehtar and a young man". Negar Habibi dismisses this, stating that "However, the two paintings with Georgian inscriptions do not necessarily confirm the non-Iranian-Muslim origin of the artist. If the latter had been Georgian he would undoubtedly have mastered this writing better, whereas, in contrast, the signatures in Persian are perfectly legible."

Other authors consider Jabbadar to have been of European origin due to a section in the Atashkadeh-ye Azar, a biographical anthology of poets from Safavid and Zand eras. It reports that the painter Mohammad Ali Beg who was active during the reign of Nader Shah ((r. 1736 – 1747)) was descended from Jabbadar, who is called farangi (European). However, it does not mention where in Europe he was from, nor that he converted to Islam. The historical chronicle Golshan-e Morad does not mention it either. The foreign and non-Iranian topics that Jabbadar paints lack any religious attachment, reverence, or longing for Christianity. Sometimes he took out religious symbols like the cross or the Bible, like in his Madeleine painting.

Jabbadar's "Majnun in the Desert", painted in 1657/58, is widely accepted to be his first work, being painted in the Indian style. However, the Iranian art historian Negar Habibi suggets that his first work was in reality "A European Landscape", which was created in 1649/50 under the name of "Ali Qoli ebn-e Mohammad". She adds that the absence of the titles jabbadar or gholam zadeh in this signature suggests that the picture was created at a time when Jabbadar was not yet employed by the royal court or the armory. One of the first paintings signed with the title "jabbadar" was made in 1658/59. Since the painting was created for Shah Abbas II ((r. 1642 – 1666)), as the inscription on it states, Jabaddar probably first joined the jebakhaneh under him.