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Kamal-ol-Molk, Mohammad Ghaffari, (also Kamal-al-Molk), is an Iranian painter. Born in 1847, in Kashan, Iran, he went to Tehran, and studied at Dar-ol-Fonoon. His progress was so rapid, that he became the royal painter of King Naseredddin Shah at the age of 18.
In 1896, the King sent him to Europe for continuation of his studies, at the Louvre, Florence, and Versailles. After returning to Iran in 1898, as a royal painter for Nasereddin Shah, he faced constant envy and jealousy from certain members of the royal court, and eventually ended up fleeing to Kerbala, Iraq, under the pretext of going for pilgrimage. There, he created some of his famous works such as "falgeer e Baghdadi" ("the fortune teller of Baghdad"), "zargar e baghdadi va shagerdash" ("The Baghdadi goldsmith and his desciple"), "meidan e Karbala" ("The Kerbala square"), and "Arab e Khofteh" ("the sleeping Arab").
He died in 1939, and was buried in Neishapur, next to the medeival giant of Sufism, Attar Neishaburi. 200 paintings are said to have remained from him.
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