*A FLAPPED QAJAR LACQUERED PAPIER-MÂCHÉ BOOK COVER IN SAFAVID STYLE PROPERTY FROM AN IMPORTANT EUROPEAN PRIVATE COLLECTION Iran, 19th century The outer surfaces painted in gold with red and green highlights on black ground, with phoenixes or simurghand dragons, birds and deer in flowering shrubs around embossed lobed cartouches, in-filled with embossed scrolling lotuses, the doublure of dark red painted in black with gold and maroon highlights, with pheasants and stylised lotuses in scrolling symmetry around directional central lobed cartouches populated by schematic flowers, fine black leather spine appearing unused, 29.7cm x 18.2cm , 29.7cm x 30cm including the flap. The composition on this book cover is a rather traditional one and it harks back to 16th-century Timurid models (see Khalili, Robinson and Stanley, Lacquer of the Islamic Lands: Part 1, London, 1996, pp. 26 - 27, figs. 5 and 6). The fantastic landscape is decorated with Sino-Islamic beasts, each one outlined in gold, similarly to our lot.