Szilágyi András (szerk.): Ars Decorativa 22. (Budapest, 2003)

Iván SZÁNTÓ: Reflections on the Origins of the Persian Appliqué from the Esterházy Treasury

works. With the help of one signed scene, The Feast of 'Id (III. 10) from the Divan of Hafez, we can well sum up the artist's stylistic marks, and his relationship to our artefact. I have chosen this scene because Gombos regarded it as the model for the main field of our appliqué.

48 The painting and the feast scene in the middle field depicts a festive rite (jasn) that has as its main protagonist a young monarch enthroned. Participants are the subject people crowding around him and its frame the realms of paradise. Although on both the merriment is scarcely orderly and the inner movements fluctuate, the arrangement nevertheless produces an impression of calm. Beyond this common basic idea, however, we notice a number of differences. The arrangement of groups in rings, which is Turkoman in origin, is very characteristic of Soudan Mohammad;

49 here, too, we find it. The focal point is occupied by the figure of the ruler, pre-eminent on account of his increased size. Around him is a tighter ring of close confidants. These are blocked off from the servant-musicians and from an outer ring of the less favoured by an ornamented fence. The well organized space in which the revellers occupy their places is matched by the variety of their mimicry. On the appliqué we find no such well-mannered positioning, nor any refined depiction of character. It is peopled mainly by uncharacterised protagonists who are beardless - namely young -, and by a few bearded - namely older - ones, sitting or standing in looser or tighter rows. Paintings ascribed to Mïr Mosavver, a contemporary and studio colleague of Sofçan Mohammad, are more similar, as exemplified by The Nightmare of Jahhâk mentioned above. Here the gestures and the characters are formalised and made typical; the faces are in three-quarters profile or are shown from the side, as in the Budapest work. On the appliqué there is just one face in full profile, that of a bearded man with a grotesque look who is sitting to the right of the fountain (///. 11). In the manner he is turning to his partner in conversation, there is a resemblance to the similarly brook-side detail of the 1530s painting Kosrov Anösirvän Answering the Mobed's Questions also from the Tahmäsb Sähnäme (folio 655 verso; ///. 12), likewise attributed to Mïr Mosavver.

50 Generally speaking, it is secondary motifs such as these that are mirrored in painting, not the large composition as a whole, for it is unique. From the small details, however, a number afford opportunities for comparison: of Sarkan Beg mention has already been made; the man holding out his cup above the stream recalls a painting in a Gerän al-s'adayn (The Conjunction of Two Lucky Stars) of Amïr Kosrov (The Reconciliation of King KayQobäd of Delhi with his brother Kay-Qävüs, folio 70 verso, Ills. 13-14),

51 while the dancer and birds with outspread wings feature on the papier-mâché book cover of a Divan of Mïr 'All Sir Nava'ï (1535^0; London, British Library, Or. 1374, ///. 75). While the former is probably a work by Mïr Mosavver, the picture on the binding is signed by his son, Mïr Sayyed 'AIL

52 Conspicuously many threads lead to works made in Tabriz in the 1530s by this family, before its emigration to Delhi in the 1540s. Even so, any kind of hint at the authorship would be unwise. To begin with, not one detail on the appliqué has a perfect copy in painting, neither in the works of Mïr Mosavver, nor in those of others. On the other hand, it is certain that in the sense even paintings were not the creations of one person, since only the idea, the plan (larh) was linked to the name of the master; the execution was done by a team. This must have been the more so in the case of the appliqué, where design and execution were two completely separate processes, but where the composition, too, was quite clearly put together from a number of elements. It is evident that the small-headed, slim angels are not works by the hand that designed the corpulent revellers. At least two, but possibly more, artists must have co-operated in the elaboration of the idea, headed by its originator who compiled the monumental end-result. Today one can only realistically say that the work may have been designed in the Tabriz ketäbkäne, in significant part using solutions attributed to Mïr Mosavver.