Enduring Victoria: Iconoclasm and Restoration at the British Embassy in Tehran

Abstract

This article will address curatorial challenges faced by the Government Art Collection in the repatriation, conservation, and selection of a new display for the British ambassador’s residence in Tehran following an attack by Iranian protesters in 2011. Drawing on the authors’ experience, the article will focus primarily on the history of George Hayter’s autograph copy of Queen Victoria’s state portrait of c. 1838–40, commissioned from the artist specifically for the new legation building in 1862–63. It will reconstruct the context of its making, the significance of its presence in nineteenth-century Tehran, its survival, and reinstatement in 2019. While uncovering new archival material that will help to situate this portrait within the wider context of Hayter’s copies of  Victoria’s state portrait and to shed light on his so far unexplored connections with Iran, its examination will also explore what this work conveys about the complex history between Britain and Iran. At a time when the UK is having a profound national conversation about how it wants to engage internationally, can Victoria’s image help to build cultural relations or is it merely a relic of an imperial past?