English: AN OPEN COURTYARD AND INTERIOR

QAJAR IRAN, PROBABLY AH 1291/1874-5 AD

Oil on board, a house interior with elaborate buildings stretching back from the foreground, the central part of the composition formed of a courtyard with central fountain and surrounding flowerbeds, towards which a man carrying a broom strides, in the forground a chequered terrace where a man in a red cloak and tall black hat sits smoking a nargileh attended by a servant, surrounding them are four gold columns holding up gold panelled roof, to either side, at the base of the building, an inscription cartouche, in the background a continuation of the complex with another courtyard and further buildings, signed and dated towards the bottom corners, composed of three panels, framed 12¼ x 23 3/8in. (31.1 x 59.4cm.)

The inscription cartouches on the two gold panels at the base of the building on either side of the painting are inscribed: Raqam-e Kamtarin Abu'l Hasan al-Ghaffari al-Mustawfi ... 1191. Although it reads 1191, the style is much more that of a hundred years later.