The Invisible Foreigner: European Women as the Eroticized Other in Later Iranian Art

This dissertation examines Persian murals and architectural decoupage decorations featuring nude and semi-nude representations of European women. I began my research of these littlenoticed images by traveling to Iran and documenting these unconventional works of art and the contexts within which they were found. These untouched historical works of art exist in Safavid (1502–1736) and later Qajar-era (1785–1925) private houses, mostly in the city of Isfahan, and consist of wall paintings as well as European prints affixed to the walls and ceilings of these houses. My research demonstrates that nude and erotic depictions of women were not only present in Iran, but that Persian murals and architectural decoupage decorations featuring nude and semi-nude representations of European women were increasingly viewed by larger audiences and survive to the present day. These historical works of art seem remarkable when we recall that much of this period was also a peak of Safavid Shia conservatism and orthodox juridical influence. The erotic representation of European women in Persian houses points to and is the by-product of a more general theme in my research. Namely, how the European in general, and the European woman in particular, was perceived as the Other in the Persian Muslim mind. The implications of this phenomenon are that the exoticization and eroticization of the European female in Iran occurred long before modern Western colonial endeavors began in the Middle East. It becomes clear that the eroticized portrayals of European women on the walls of Persian houses are not examples of imperialism and colonial domination as such a power dynamic did not yet exist in seventeenth-century Iran. Nor should they be reduced to the mere geopolitical or historical analysis; on the contrary, these portrayals of the female body, both in the West and Islamic East, address a trans-geographical issue which is the principal focus of this research. How the female body is perceived, treated, and represented across time and space irrespective of any East-West dichotomous construct.