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

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

///. Periodisation as Reflected in Safavid textile arts The Budapest Persian appliqué comes nowhere near the silk and velvet weaving and embroidery on which the fame of Safavid handicrafts at that time was based. Judged by strictly textile history criteria, it cannot compete with the extraordinarily fine and decorative lampases and qalamkärs, products of the traditional Persian weaving manufactures. On the other hand, it was not made for such a purpose. The general effect, the imposing stage of the classical Persian world theatre, which is unique, parallels, if indeed exist, are not to be sought in the textile arts. The early modem weaving manufactories employed a standardised vocabulary of traditional ornamental and figurai patterns, taken over from painting or developed individually, in accordance with the requirements of industrial production, and multiplied them into an endless scheme, with the result that depictions lost their autonomous meaning, even if we do recognise in the conventional scenes Kosrov and Sïrïn, Yusuf and Zoleyka, and the royal hunts. Thus, only the fabric of the Esterházy appliqué is in accordance with these manufactured goods, while the technique employed is definitely at variance with them. For the same technical reasons it differs from the famous Persian royal carpets, too, although a number of threads lead to them. Persian carpets, in a similar manner as the products of the abovementioned weaving genres, are, of technical necessity, built on repetitive ornamentation. Appliqué, on the other hand, does not employ a mechanical duplicating technique, only freehand copies worked individually, on the basis of a mould. Technically, then, appliqué is on a more archaic level, although, in this case, it consciously copies the finer genre. In what follows we shall see that the pictorial programme and structure exhibit pronounced similarities with the most famous early Safavid carpets, which at the same time are the most famous carpets of all time. When, on the other hand, we bring the chronology of the carpets into our investigation, it turns out that these peak achievements of Persian art - with our subject among them as a genre curiosity - came into being at the same time, stemmed from a common ground. It was the artistic heyday of Shah Tahmäsb I that created these veritable woven frescoes, which, just like the great manuscripts, are the epoch's visions of the universe. And while studying them, periodisation based on the other formal model - painting - grows stronger. It is worth taking the carpets into consideration in three groups: the hunting carpets, the Ardabil carpets and the Sanguszko carpets, omitting some others, which otherwise offer a wealth of comparative material. Of the first group, the Vienna

53 and the Boston

54 hunting carpets are the most closely connected to our artefact, since the former has a three-part bordure system according with that of the Budapest appliqué, and in the main bordure it has a similar row of angels. On the Boston carpet, in this section tippling courtiers are sitting, in a setting with birds and bushes. Both carpets belong to the medallion type, thus, apart from the bordure structure; they differ morphologically from the Esterházy appliqué, but share with it in the iconography, as well as in such solutions as the types of attire and the alternation of beardless and bearded faces. The relative dating of the hunting carpets is still to be solved, their localisation even so.

55 Earlier research has proposed that the sole dated example, the one in Milan, was the earliest.

56 Although the epigraphy is notoriously complicated, with the correct reading of the numerals leading to disputes (A. H. 929 or 949, that is A. D. 1522/3 or 1542/3), when compared with the more developed weaving technique and more consistent pattern structure of the likewise dated (equivalent to A. D. 1539/40) Ardabil carpets, it turned out that the earlier date is the easier to justify, and the Milan carpet was regarded as being from the reign of Shah Esma'ïl I (1501-1524). That the other undated - hunting carpets are already from the age of Tahmäsb I, and were made not in the period of the Milan work but that of the Ardabil