A Comparative Study of the Lithography Version of Noush Afarin Protected in Astan Quds Library and in the Works of Mirza Nasrollah

The prevalence of the production of lithographic illustrated versions from the half of 13 century AH caused that painters join to the group of calligraphers and book producers in these workshops and in this way many illustrated versions were produced. In the most of available lithographic illustrated versions from Qajar period, if the version has not any missing page from the opening to the end, the name of author, the print date, the ordering person or patronage, and sometimes the name of publisher exist in the first or last pages. It is while, in many of these versions, there is no track of their painter's name. The Noush afarin version of Astan Quda library is one of these versions. Noush afarin is description of the love of Noush afarin Gohartaj, the daughter of Damascus king, and the prince soltan Ibrahim the son of the king of China. The origin of this story is related to the late Safavid period, but it became popular in Qajar time. This is one of the Persian slangy and love story of Qajar period that in its own time had popularity and acceptability among people and book publishers and patronages and for the same reason, many different versions of this story have been published in lithography.The version of Astan Quds library belongs to 1308 AH and its calligrapher is Mehdi Ibn Akhond Molla Abdol-motalleb Damghani, according to a signature at the end of the book. And the book has been published with the efforts of Mirza Hasan Ketab froush. This version has missing pages at the beginning and presently seventy nine pages of it are available. This version has 11 pictures with excellent quality that has been executed skillfully and strongly, but the name of their painter is not available. In this research, with the aim of recognition of the painter's signature, the pictures of this version have been compared with some of the paintings of Mirza Nasrollah, the lithography artist of Qajar period. As in many cases, it is not trustful to attribute a work to an artist just according to its signature, the emphasis of this paper, is not based on the signature, but through stylistic studies and comparing some characteristics of the paintings, such as drawing and pen-making method, characterization, and some other visual characteristics. The method of this research has been a comparative analysis and the method of providing information has been documentary-library. Also in the section of comparing the works the emphasize has been on authors. The result of this research shows that there has been many similarities between the visual characteristic of Mirza Nasrollah's works and the paintings in our version in drawing, decorations in the compositions, flowers and bushes, faces of the figures, cloths, and characterization. Also in the view of time, the print date is coincident with the period of Mirza Nasrollah's activity. So, there is this probability that the paintings have been executed by Mirza Nasrollah and his purples under his supervision.