Mirza Kadym Irevani was a ornamentalist artist and

portrait A portrait is a painting, photograph, sculpture, or other artistic representation of a person, in which the face is always predominant. In arts, a portrait may be represented as half body and even full body. If the subject in full body better r ...

ist, whose work mostly consisted of typical

Persian miniature A Persian miniature (Persian language, Persian: نگارگری ایرانی ''negârgari Irâni'') is a small Persian painting on paper, whether a book illustration or a separate work of art intended to be kept in an album of such works called a ...

s and

lacquer Lacquer is a type of hard and usually shiny coating or finish applied to materials such as wood or metal. It is most often made from resin extracted from trees and waxes and has been in use since antiquity. Asian lacquerware, which may be c ...

s. Mirza Kadym Irevani is famous for his drawings and miniature paintings. In the 1850s, he was commissioned by the

Russians Russians ( ) are an East Slavs, East Slavic ethnic group native to Eastern Europe. Their mother tongue is Russian language, Russian, the most spoken Slavic languages, Slavic language. The majority of Russians adhere to Eastern Orthodox Church ...

to repaint the interior of the Erivan Sardar's Palace, which had originally been painted by a

Persian Persian may refer to: * People and things from Iran, historically called ''Persia'' in the English language ** Persians, the majority ethnic group in Iran, not to be conflated with the Iranic peoples ** Persian language, an Iranian language of the ...

artist in 1815. He also painted 4 big (1 м X 2 м) portraits for the Sardar's Palace.Эривани / Под ред. Б. В. Иогансона. — Искусство стран и народов мира (краткая художественная энциклопедия): Советская энциклопедия, 1962. — P. 61. Mirza Kadym Erivani's works are kept in the

National Art Museum of Azerbaijan Azerbaijan National Museum of Art () is the biggest art museum of Azerbaijan. It was founded in 1936 in Baku and in 1943 was named after Rustam Mustafayev, a prominent Azerbaijani scenic designer and theater artist. The museum consists of two 19 ...

, the

Art Museum of Georgia The Art Museum of Georgia (AMG) ( ka, საქართველოს ხელოვნების მუზეუმი, ''sak'art'velos khelovnebis muzeumi''), alternatively known as Shalva Amiranashvili Museum of Fine Arts, is one of the l ...

, and the Hermitage.

Biography

Of Azerbaijani stock, Mirza Kadym Irevani was born in 1825, in the city of

Erivan Yerevan ( , , ; ; sometimes spelled Erevan) is the capital and largest city of Armenia, as well as one of the world's List of oldest continuously inhabited cities, oldest continuously inhabited cities. Situated along the Hrazdan River, Yerev ...

Qajar Iran The Guarded Domains of Iran, alternatively the Sublime State of Iran and commonly called Qajar Iran, Qajar Persia or the Qajar Empire, was the Iranian state under the rule of the Qajar dynasty, which was of Turkic peoples, Turkic origin,Cyrus G ...

during the tenure of the last Iranian governor of the Erivan Khanate,

Hossein Khan Sardar Hossein Qoli Khan Qajar Sardar Iravani () was a statesman and commander in Qajar Iran, who was the last khan (governor) of the Erivan Khanate from 1807 to 1828. A member of the Qajar tribe and a close relative of the Qajar dynasty, Hossein Qol ...

, and belonged to a "family of professional decorators". During Hossein Khan's capable governorship, Erivan prospered; the Sardar's Palace became decorated with mirrors,

stucco Stucco or render is a construction material made of aggregates, a binder, and water. Stucco is applied wet and hardens to a very dense solid. It is used as a decorative coating for walls and ceilings, exterior walls, and as a sculptural and ...

s, and fourteen paintings. The paintings depicted four heroes from the Iranian ''

Shahnameh The ''Shahnameh'' (, ), also transliterated ''Shahnama'', is a long epic poem written by the Persian literature, Persian poet Ferdowsi between and 1010 CE and is the national epic of Greater Iran. Consisting of some 50,000 distichs or couple ...

'' epic, including

Rostam use both this parameter and , birth_date to display the person's date of birth, date of death, and age at death) --> , death_place = Kabulistan , death_cause = With the conspiracy of his half-brother Shaghad, he fell into a we ...

and

Sohrab use both this parameter and , birth_date to display the person's date of birth, date of death, and age at death) --> , death_place = Turan , death_cause = Killed in combat by his father, Rostam, with neither Rostam nor Sohrab awa ...

, as well as contemporary Iranian notables; king

Fath-Ali Shah Qajar Fath-Ali Shah Qajar (; 5 August 1772 – 24 October 1834) was the second Shah of Qajar Iran. He reigned from 17 June 1797 until his death on 24 October 1834. His reign saw the irrevocable ceding of Iran's northern territories in the Caucasus, com ...

(1797–1834),

Abbas Mirza Abbas Mirza (; 26 August 1789 – 25 October 1833) was the Qajar dynasty, Qajar crown prince of Qajar Iran, Iran during the reign of his father Fath-Ali Shah Qajar (). As governor of the vulnerable Azerbaijan (Iran), Azerbaijan province, he played ...

, Hossein Khan Sardar, and his brother Hasan Khan Qajar. Other paintings included two hunting and battle scenes. All fourteen paintings were originally painted in 1815 by a

painter named ʿAbd al-Rāziq. At the decisive siege of Erivan of 1827, during the Russo-Persian War of 1826-1828, the Russian artillery gravely damaged the Sardar's Palace. After the Iranians were forced to cede Erivan to the Russians per the

Treaty of Turkmenchay The Treaty of Turkmenchay (; ) was an agreement between Qajar Iran and the Russian Empire, which concluded the Russo-Persian War (1826–1828). It was second of the series of treaties (the first was the 1813 Treaty of Gulistan and the last, the ...

of 1828, the Erivan Sardar's palace was neglected by the Russians, and thus fell in ruins. A few decades later, in 1850, when

Orientalism In art history, literature, and cultural studies, Orientalism is the imitation or depiction of aspects of the Eastern world (or "Orient") by writers, designers, and artists from the Western world. Orientalist painting, particularly of the Middle ...

came in vogue, the Russians decided to rebuild the palace. The Russians commissioned Mirza Kadym Irevani to repaint the interior of the palace. Thus; "all historical figures depicted on the walls of the palace were from 30–40 years earlier than the time of Mirza Kadym Irevani". Mirza Kadym Irevani's oeuvre consists mostly of "typical

s and

s". He also created some "monumental and

easel painting An easel is an upright support used for displaying and/or fixing something resting upon it, at an angle of about 20° to the vertical. In particular, painters traditionally use an easel to support a painting while they work on it, normally stan ...

s with figurative motives", but they are considered to be of lesser aesthetic quality. In relation to his oeuvre, Associate Professor Irina Koshoridze adds: Mirza Kadym Irevani's paintings of the Sardar's Palace, as well as "a few of his oil paintings" are kept in the

. Some of his other works are kept in the Hermitage in

St. Petersburg Saint Petersburg, formerly known as Petrograd and later Leningrad, is the second-largest city in Russia after Moscow. It is situated on the River Neva, at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea. The city had a population of 5,601, ...

. Five paintings (Rostam, Sohrab, Fath-Ali Shah Qajar, Hossein Khan Sardar, and Hasan Khan Qajar) were moved to Georgia after the Russians demolished the Palace in 1914, and are kept in the Oriental arts department of the

Gallery

File:Portrait of young man by Irevani.jpg, "Portrait of young man". The middle of the 19th century. Baku,

File:Mirza Qadim Irevani. Azerbaijan. Portrait of Fatali Shah.png, Portrait of Fath-Ali Shah. Baku,

File:Mirzə Qədim İrəvani - Bülbül və qızılgül kolu.jpg, "Roses and Nightingales." Baku,

File:Portrait of sitting woman by Irevani.jpg, "Portrait of sitting woman", Tempera, 1870s, Baku,

Notes

References

Sources

* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Irevani, Mirza Kadym Azerbaijani portrait painters Armenian Azerbaijanis Artists from Yerevan Iranian Azerbaijanis 19th-century Iranian painters 1820s births 1875 deaths 19th-century Azerbaijani painters Iranian miniature painters