The reign of Bahram V, Sassanian King-of-Kings (shahanshah) from AD 420 to AD 438, began inauspiciously. He acceded to the throne in the wake of the assassination of his father, Yazdegerd I. Having been sent at an early age to be raised under the tutelage of the neighbouring Lakhmid kings on the eastern edge of the Arabian Peninsula, Bahram was out of the country during the strife which lef to his father’s death. Appropriately named for the Old Iranian god of war, Verethranga, Bahram hurried to the Sassanian capital, Ctesiphon, with an army at his side, ready to reclaim the throne by force. Legend has it, however, that this proved unnecessary when Bahram made an offer to his rivals: the crown and royal sceptres would be placed in a room with two hungry lions. Whoever retrieved the crown, unarmed, would win the throne. Of course, Bahram himself succeeded, killing both lions with his bare hands. His reign was one of prosperity and, besides brief wars with the Eastern Romans and the Kidarites, was also one of peace. Bahram was famed for his practice of cancelling taxes and forgiving debts at regular public ceremonies. Despite not engaging in any war of aggression, Bahram expanded Iran’s frontiers simply through sheer force of charisma. The Sassanian monarchy had long appointed the King of Armenia, who was a vassal of Sassanid Iran. Bahram duly appointed Artaxias IV as Armenia’s monarch, but Artaxias did not prove up to the task. The Armenian nobility (nakharars) considered two replacements, Theodosius II of the Eastern Roman Empire – a Christian like the Armenians themselves – or Bahram V himself. Bahram was chosen, as he was considered the monarch of greatest character, charisma and intellect.

Fondly remembered by generations of Persians thereafter, Bahram’s glorious reign was memorialised in two of Persia’s greatest works of literature. The first was various sections of Ferdowsi’s epic Shahnameh (The Book of Kings), while Bahram was also the main protagonist of Nizam Ganjavi’s Haft Peykar (The Seven Beauties), also known as Bahramnameh (The Book of Bahram). This masterpiece of erotic poetry relates a tale by which Bahram sent for seven princesses from neighbouring kingdoms, among which he would choose a bride. He built a great palace for them, consisting of seven rooms, each with seven domes, and each governed by one of the seven Classical Planets (i.e. moving celestial objects visible with the naked eye: the Sun, the Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn). On each of the seven days of the week, Bahram visited one of the seven potential brides (the eponymous ‘seven beauties’ of the title). He feasted, drank, and enjoyed carnal relations with each, before listening to a tale that each princess related. Despite the erotic context of the poem, each tale was highly moralising, dealing with themes such as royal marriage, lovesickness, and even good and evil. The popularity of this poem ensured Bahram’s fame continued through the centuries, and he became a popular subject for two forms of characteristically Persian art: miniature painting and glazed tile-work.

This tile, depicting Bahram who is labelled, dates from the Qajar Period. Considered a bridge between Classical and Modern Iran, the artistic output of the Qajar Dynasty has often been ignored or sidelined. However, the Dynasty’s sponsorship of traditional Persian arts enabled the survival of numerous forms which, in the rush to modernity, may have otherwise been side-lined. This was also a period in which art flourished before the hard-line secularism and modernisation of the Pahlavi Dynasty (AD 1925 – AD 1979), and the unfettered Islamism of the later Iranian Revolution. In the early Qajar period, especially, we see an appreciation for Iran’s ancient and storied past, as well as an acceptance of the erotic and sensual moralities of previous centuries. It is into this early Qajar context that this glazed tile fits. Bahram is depicted as a young man, with full straight beard and voluptuous curly hair. His head bears a traditional Sassanian crown; each Sassanid monarch had his own unique crown made, and some indeed had several, but each was elaborate and multi-elemental, consisting of precious metals, feathers, furs and fabrics. The crown itself, with a winged element, actually recalls the crowns of Bahram II and Bahram IV, and it is possible that the artist mistook these Shahs for the Bahram in which they were interested. His clothing is a relatively good effort at depicting the clothing of the Sassanian Period, and likely is the result of research on the part of the artist. The king is depicted on a raised bezel at the centre of the tile, which is outlined with a knot pattern; the whole is framed in a scalloped rectangle of yellow, around which is a blue border with arabesque foliate corners.

Qajar tiles fit into a long tradition of figurative glazed ceramic tiles in Iran. Among these tiles, images from Persian life and history were common. Bahram V was among the most popular subjects, and features on numerous tiles produced in the Qajar Period which are now in major museums (e.g. National Museums of Scotland A.1888.105). Mainly produced in Tehran, the Qajar capital, underglaze painted tiles like this one often formed friezes around the dado of Iranian grand mansions. Ceramic wall-decoration was, like miniature painting, a medium through which imagery from a range of sources could reach wide dissemination throughout Iran. Tiles were produced in large numbers and, from the AD 1860s, were even mass-produced from transfer prints. But the delicate art of underglaze painting remained a treasured technique, which is demonstrated in its finest form on this tile.