Order of the Lion and the Sun

The Order of the Lion and the Sun was instituted by Fat’h Ali Shah of the Qajar Dynasty in 1808 to honour foreign officials (later extended to Persians) who had rendered distinguished services to Persia. In 1925, under the Pahlavi dynasty the Order continued as the Order of Homayoun with new insignia, though based on the Lion and Sun motif. This motif was used for centuries by the rulers of Persia, being formally adopted under Mohammad Shah.

The order was senior to the Order of the Crown. It was issued in five grades.

Foreign Recipients

Major-General Sir John Malcolm was the first foreign recipient in 1810. Other foreign recipients include:

• Richard Colley (Wellesley), Marquess Wellesley (1811)
• Sir Gore Ouseley (1770–1844), British ambassador to Persia and oriental scholar (1812)
• Major-General Sir Henry Lindsay-Bethune (1787–1851), Commander of Persian infantry regiments (1816)
• General Aleksey Petrovich Yermolov
• Sir Robert Ker Porter (1777–1842), artist and diplomat (1819)
• Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord (1821)
• Lieutenant-Colonel Sir Henry Willock, British Envoy to Persia 1815-1826 (1826)
• Lieutenant-Colonel Sir John Kinnear Macdonald, British Envoy to Persia 1826-1830 (1828)
• Sir John McNeill, British Envoy to Persia 1836-1842 (1833)
• Sir Mancherjee Merwanjee Bhownagree KCIE
• Sir George Hayter (1792–1871), British Portrait Painter
• Armand Trousseau
• Marshal Francois Achille Bazaine (1811–1888), Marshal of France
• Seth Apcar
• Sir Albert Abdullah David Sassoon (1889)
• General Sir Albert Houtum-Schindler
• Karl Georg Graf Huyn (1909)
• Edward Granville Browne (1922)
• Major-General Sir Frederick Sykes

In literature

• Anton Chekhov has a short story titled The Lion And The Sun. The story is about a mayor who had "long been desirous of receiving the Persian order of The Lion and the Sun".[1]

See also

• Lion and Sun
• Order of Aftab

Notes

• On 6 September 1900, the mayor of Mariánské Lázně, Dr. Nadler, was decorated with the Commander Cross of the Lion and the Order of the Sun by the Shah during an official visit.

External links

• The Qajar Dynasty: Orders & Decorations
• Orders & Decorations of Pahlavi dynasty are exhibited in the ORDER section of the website