A Study on the Appearance of Qajar King's Photo on the First Persian Banknotes

The first paper money of the world was published in China. From the beginning, the creators published illustrated paper money. The tradition of illustrating banknotes continued in Europe, too. After paper money’s being widely used, many images appeared on the front and back of the banknotes. Among these images, portraits of important characters like kings and state leaders are significant. First portrait of a king was released in France in 1789 on the paper money. From the beginning of paper money publication to the invention of photography only four portraits of kings were published on paper money.From the beginning of publishing notes in Iran in 1889 portraits of the Shah of Iran (Nasser-al-din-Shah) was put on paper money. During the Qajar era, the main axis of decorating and designing the banknotes was using the image of the first person in the country, and then plant motifs as well as writing style and the lion and sun emblem were also used. The image of Nasser-al-din-Shah, as the first important person of the country, was used on banknotes for 35 years so that there was no image of other Qajar kings and historical monuments and landscapes on the banknotes. These portraits are the result of the works of famous photographers of that time like Abdullah Mirza Qajar and William and Daniel Downey (photographers of royal court of Queen Victoria). Accordingly, 23 series of banknotes published from 1890 to 1933 have been explored in this study via referring to centres of preserving documents and archives of the related photos as well as library study. Though there are numerous books about photography and banknotes, there is no discussion about the photo portraits used in designing the banknotes and the photographers of such photos.Thus, this article aims to introduce, first, the photo portrait of kings used on Iranian banknotes and, then, identify and present the used photos on Qajar banknotes