Abstract
Representation of sexuality in various societies and nations has its own specific definition. Every society considering its cultural and social occasions has talked about the representation of the sexuality role in its products. Iranians are no exception in this matter and have enjoyed the role of sexuality in the field of arts in different eras. In the ancient Persia, according to the beliefs and customary creeds, one’s body has been considered a part of sexual identity and in relation with the creation type in their works; they also give them identities such as those of God/ gods and goddesses. After the Arabs’ bringing of the Islamic culture to Iran and the banning of illustrations, Iranian painters, influenced by Hindi illustrations, used literary sources to accompany sexual identity, in the first place, and then sexual intercourse as an educational matter with a descriptive-poetic view. The milestone of the sexual illustrations was in the Safavid period and was accompanied by the cultural interaction with the Western countries. Later on, in the Qajar period, with the arrival of modern tools, pornographic and erotic illustrations were created. The aim of this paper is to investigate erotic illustrations, their changes and evolution in the Qajar period. It also looks into sex reassignment from the figurative body in the ancient Iranians’ beliefs to depictions of nudity up until the Qajar periods and also the creation of pornographic illustrations in the Qajar period.
