Pahlavi Crown (1925)
Pahlavi Crown (1925)
The imperial crown commissioned by Reza Shah for the founding of the Pahlavi dynasty
The Pahlavi Crown is the imperial crown commissioned by Reza Shah Pahlavi in 1925 upon his ascension to the Iranian throne and the founding of the Pahlavi dynasty in succession to the Qajar. The crown was used at Reza Shah's coronation on 25 April 1926 in the Golestan Palace and again at the coronation of his son Mohammad Reza Shah on 26 October 1967, after which the dynasty fell with the 1979 Islamic Revolution and the crown passed with the rest of the Iranian Crown Jewels into the custody of the Treasury of National Jewels at the Central Bank of Iran in Tehran. It is one of the most heavily gem-set imperial crowns of the twentieth century and a principal symbol of the short-lived Pahlavi monarchical project.
Commissioning and design
Reza Shah's accession in December 1925 brought to a close the Qajar dynasty, which had ruled Iran since 1796, and established a new ruling house in deliberate continuity with the older imperial tradition of Persian kingship. The new crown was commissioned to mark the change of dynasty and to serve at the coronation, planned for the spring of the following year. The work was executed by the Iranian court jeweller Haj Serajeddin and his workshop, who drew on the materials of the existing imperial collection and on additional gems acquired specifically for the project.
The design references both the earlier Qajar regalia and the Sasanian crowns of pre-Islamic Persia, with a high domed form, a sunburst motif at the apex, and an arched band of imperial green velvet visible through the openwork gold framework. The crown is approximately 29 centimetres tall and weighs about 2.08 kilograms.
Stones and metalwork
The crown is set with approximately 3,380 diamonds totalling around 1,144 carats, 5 emeralds totalling around 200 carats, 2 sapphires totalling around 19 carats, and 368 pearls. The principal diamond is a 60-carat yellow diamond at the front of the crown, with the larger ornamental work in the form of repeating diamond floral and stellar motifs across the body of the crown. The framework is yellow gold of high karat, with platinum settings used for the principal gem-set zones.
Many of the stones in the Pahlavi Crown were drawn from the existing Iranian imperial collection rather than newly cut, and a substantial portion of the diamond work shows the older cushion and rose-cut profiles characteristic of stones cut in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The reuse of historical stones was deliberate and was understood at the time as a continuity gesture toward the older imperial collections.
The 1967 coronation
Mohammad Reza Shah, who had succeeded his father in 1941, postponed his own coronation for twenty-six years and held it eventually on 26 October 1967, his forty-eighth birthday. At that ceremony, the Pahlavi Crown was used as the principal coronation crown for the Shah, while a separate crown — the Empress Farah Crown, designed by Pierre Arpels of Van Cleef & Arpels and incorporating an emerald, ruby, sapphire, pearl, and diamond programme — was made for the consort. The 1967 ceremony was the only occasion on which the Pahlavi Crown was used in coronation.
Custody and display
Following the Islamic Revolution of 1979, the Pahlavi Crown remained in Iran as part of the Treasury of National Jewels, which is held at the Central Bank of Iran in Tehran and is held in trust for the Iranian state as part of the national reserves. The collection has been on public display in the Treasury museum since the 1960s, with the Pahlavi Crown one of the principal exhibits. The collection is not insured in the conventional sense; it is held as backing for the national currency reserves.
In the historical record
The Pahlavi Crown is one of a small group of twentieth-century imperial crowns made for newly established or restored monarchies — alongside the Imperial Crown of Ethiopia of 1930 made for Haile Selassie and the various coronation crowns of the post-imperial Asian monarchies. As both regalia and as an object of gem-setting on a grand scale, the Pahlavi Crown is a major reference for the high-end design vocabulary of the twentieth-century court jeweller.