Jewish Ladies in Persia 1913

Martiros Sarian created this oil on canvas work, titled "Jewish Ladies in Persia," in 1913. The painting presents two women, side-by-side, filling most of the canvas and catching our attention with bold color. Sarian employs a simplified form, reducing the women’s features to essential shapes. The woman on the left wears a dark headscarf with broad yellow stripes, a pattern that draws the eye and provides a rhythmic visual structure. Her face is rendered with soft, rounded forms, giving her a gentle presence. The woman on the right is draped in a striking red headscarf decorated with small, stylized blue motifs that create visual tension and add a layer of symbolic meaning. In its composition and use of color, this work destabilizes the established orientalist tropes. The direct gaze and monumental presence of the figures challenge passive representation. Instead, the painting becomes an active site for re-interpretation. Through its formal choices, it engages with modern ideas about identity, representation, and the gaze.