Joshua Parfitt
THE Iranian government has confiscated a lithograph on loan from an Alicante museum as it depicted Spain’s Queen Isabella II with ‘too much cleavage’.
The lithograph was removed on the order of officials from the Iranian Ministry of Culture as the mid-19th century Queen was wearing a sumptuous dress with a neckline and shoulders bared.
The item was one of 283 loaned by Alicante’s Marq museum to the National Museum of Iran (MNI), in Tehran, as part of an exchange programme.
It has been repackaged and deposited in the MNI’s store rooms until the exhibition finishes in April next year and the items return to Spain.
The lithograph itself depicts the Queen’s visit to Alicante on May 25, 1858, on the first trip of the new trainline with Madrid.
Isabella II appears in the center of the image surrounded by dozens of people celebrating the event while being presented with a tray with delicacies.
This piece was selected along with 282 others by the technicians of both the MNI and the Marq for the exhibition, but was immediately removed before it could be viewed by the public.
It comes after the MNI loaned artefacts for the Iran: Cradle of Civilisation exhibition at the Marq earlier this year.
