English: Franz Colombari (Turkish-Austrian, circa 1813-circa 1876)

The Swedish physician Dr Conrad Gustav Fagergren and the American missionary Joseph Gallup Cochran, pictured during their visit to Tehran in late 1847

Pencil and watercolour on paper, stamped on reverse Vente F. Colombari 1981, contemporary inscription pasted to mount, possibly in the artist's hand, Un suèdois et un américain de passage à Téhéran, F. Colombari 164 x 114 mm.

While Colombari himself did not identify the sitters in his inscription, they have since been identified as the Swedish physician Dr Conrad Gustav Fagergren and the American missionary Joseph Gallup Cochran. The painting would have been made in late 1847 when both of them had just arrived in Tehran.

Joseph Gallup Cochran, a Presbyterian minister, was born in 1817 at Springville (NY). He graduated from Amherst College in 1842, and from Union Theological Seminary in 1847. After his ordination he was commissioned by the Presbyterian Board as a missionary to Persia, where he arrived in late 1847 with his wife Deborah Plum and his young family. They settled in Urmia in West Azerbaijan, home of one of the earliest Christian churches, the Assyrian Church of the East. The family devoted their missionary zeal to the welfare of the local population, many of whom were devout Christians. Except for a visit to the USA from 1865 to 1867 for the purpose of enrolling their children in schools, the Cochrans lived in Persia for the rest of their lives. Cochran died in Urmia in 1871 and his wife continued to run the mission. She was joined in 1878 by their son Joseph Plum Cochran, who was trained as a physician, who in addition to running the mission set up a hospital and Persia's first medical school.

Conrad Gustav Fagergren was born in 1818 at Stockholm and died in 1879 at Shiraz. While he initially trained as a barber-surgeon, he later studied medicine in Stockholm and travelled in Europe, eventually enrolling in Russian military service. While with an army corps in Circassia he was captured but escaped to Istanbul and became captain surgeon in the Turkish army. He proceeded to Persia, arriving in Tehran in 1847, where he attracted the favour of Muhammad Shah, but after the Shah's death in 1848 he moved to Shiraz, where he served as physician and medical officer to the governor. He remained in Shiraz for the rest of his life.

The artist Franz Colombari was born in around 1813 in Izmir and died circa 1876 in Paris. He was the son of Anna Hafner (a working woman from Kaerten in Austria), and an inn-keeper in Izmir named Colombari (from Treviso which was part of the Austrian Empire at that time), whom Anna Hafner had met while visiting her sister in Izmir. Franz Colombari's father passed away when he was two years old and his mother re-married, this time to a man from the Piemont region named Fornaris. Colombari moved with his mother and step-father first to Austria and then to Corfu, Izmir, and Constantinople, always in search of work. He also lived at times with his aunt in Izmir and is known to have lived in Bologna in around 1830, after which the family moved to Tabriz, where according to his mother's published travel account, he entered the services of a Russian diplomat. The travel account also reports on Colombari's language and painting training and skills.

In 1833 the Russian diplomat introduced Colombari in 1833 to Qahreman Mirza, son of Abbas Mirza (Crown Prince and Governor of Azerbaijan), who employed Colombari in planning to reorganize the Azerbaijan army. With Abbas Mirza's death within a few months, and Fathali Shah's passing a year later, these plans were no longer a priority and Qahreman Mirza introduced Colombari to his brother Muhammad Shah who had ascended to the Qajar throne. Muhammad Shah gradually transferred all responsibilities for the army to his chief minister, Haji Mirza Aqasi, who developed his own plans for military reform. Colombari developed a close relationship with Haji Mirza Aqasi and played an important role in executing the chief minister's plans for the army. He was promoted to the rank of Colonel and continued to rise through the ranks, in spite of the fact that he had neither any military experience nor training. During his stay in Persia he developed a close friendship with Leon Labat, the personal physician of Muhammad Shah, and his wife Laure, and the many European and Russian artists who passed through or lived in Persia and who were in the circle of artists close to the young crown prince (the future Nasr al-Din Shah). He made a watercolour painting of the crown prince in 1844, and one of Muhammad Shah in 1847.

His military career in Persia came to an end in 1848 when Muhammad Shah passed away and Haji Mirza Aqasi lost his position, at which time Colombari moved to Paris. In Paris he re-established his friendships with the artists he had met in Persia and married the now widowed Laure Labat. During his time in Persia Colombari always tried to hide his humble Austrian origins and presented himself as a Frenchman, and in particular tried to disassociate himself from his mother whose lifestyle and reputation were not in line with the image that he had created for himself. This proved to be complicated at times because his mother was a frequent visitor to Persia, owned a house in Tehran, and was known to the French, German, and English expatriate community.