Title and Persian Paintings; An Iconographical Reading of The Two young Lovers and Coiffeuse

Title and Persian Paintings; An Iconographical Reading of The Two young Lovers and Coiffeuse Abstract: It has been extensively argued that the title of an art-work plays a key role in beholders’ reception of the work. In the absence of institutions for the documentation of objects of art in Iran before the turn of the twentieth century, the title of art-works remained unregistered and existed in oral culture, relying on collective memory. As the result, since the original title was rarely registered, some of the current titles were assigned to paintings in a context other than the context of production, sometimes centuries later and by people who had barely any idea about the context of production or what the painting actually depicted. Therefore, there is always the possibility that a given title is simply based on a specific understanding or interpretation of the painting. With such premises, the associated title to one of Sani’ ol-Molk’s paintings is investigated in this article. The painting is archived as The Two Young Lovers and a Coiffeuse at Golestan Palace Museum in Tehran. It portrays a love scene between a young lady standing in the center of the visual text and a young man to her right. In addition to the couple, an old woman is standing on the right side of the painting. The costume and jewelries of the young lady signal her wealth and high social status. Just like the young lady’s clothes, every single piece of the young man’s dress mark him as a gentleman of wealth and affluence. The old woman, who is holding rosary beads in her left hand, has a lower social status; this could suggest to viewers that she is serving the wealthy young couple. The current title proposes the old lady as a coiffeuse, a person who would customarily prepare and make up a bride for her wedding; consequently, the young lady would be the bride and the young man the groom. But the roles of the old woman with a long scarf and prayer beads in hand, the young lady in read qamis as, respectively, a coiffeuse and a bride seem problematic. This is highlighted by looking at other works of Sani’ ol-Molk: in his depiction of the occupation of figures, he resorts to the suggestiveness of tools or manners that are commonly attributed to those professions. Therefore, a coiffeuse is not the proper occupation for the old woman nor can the young lady be a bride. In this paper I argue that the old woman is most probably a nanny who acted as an intermediary agent to help lovers communicate and bring them together. The choice of nanny as an alternative to coiffeuse is further supported by the fact that nannies in their intermediary role are also present in other paintings by Sani’ ol-Molk. Therefore, based on conventional visual icons used in Sani’ ol-Molk’s paintings, the old woman can be recognized as a nanny.