'Persia and the Persian Question by the Hon. George Nathaniel Curzon, M.P.' [‎317] (362/714)

TEHERAN 317
my notes were the chief contents of the Royal Museum > In a
country that is always bewailing its lack of money, and which
cr.es aloud for the regeneration that might so easily spring from
the construction or repair of roads, bridges, caravanserais, and
other elementary public works, it can excite but one feeling to
see all this impotent wealth piled up, secreting beneath a glass
case that which should serve to populate entire districts and
to enrich great communities. How much worse is it when we
know that the treasures here displayed do not stand alone but
are supplemented by hoards of specie and bullion stored in the
vaults below, which the lowest estimate values at three millions ster
ling and the highest I will not say at what figure. Patriotism need
not be so very difficult an attribute in royalty, when it is able to
stop short of the treasure-house and the money-bags.
Below the Museum care a number of vaults, known as the Chinee-
aneh, or Porcelain Room, where vast quantities of Sevres
Dresden, old Worcester, and other porcelain are stored, the gifts of
uropean sovereigns to the present and preceding kings. There is
a soanAsiaheh-Khaneh^r Armoury, containing curious arms, and
the Shall s rifles and fowling-pieces ; and a gallery wherein is bumf
a large collection of the paintings of the late esteemed artist, Abifl
Hasan Khan Ghaffan, styled the Sani-el-Mulk. These last-named
apartments I did not see.
On the other side of the top of the staircase is a" room, some-
tunes called the Council Chamber, in which I was admitted to a
alleged private audience by the Shah. It was empty on all the
Thron Ck occasions wlien 1 saw it, save for an object standing in
the corner by the window. This was the Takht-i-Taous
or celebrated so-called Peacock Throne, said to have been brought
by Nadir Shah from India in 1739-40, and identified by a lorn,
consensus of writers (I know of no divergent opinion) with the
famous Peacock Throne that stood in the Diwan-i-Khas at Delhi
(where its site is still shown) and that was the main ornament of
the glittering court of the Great Mogul. From a study of
ail the extant authorities bearing upon the question, I had come
to the conclusion that this claim could not be substantiated, and
that the throne at Teheran, exquisite work of art though it be,
15 o'ooonn/ in 18 ^ estimated the valu e of the Persian Crown Jewels at
,"UU,UU()/. (Mission to Persia, vol. i. p. 384): Lord PoIUnP-ton in i.
0,000,0002.-50,000,000Z. ! (Half Roxmd the World, pp. 229-232). ' ' 1