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

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

carpets, was already clear. One of a number of characteristics attesting to this is that on the Vienna and Boston carpets the arabesque and palmette pattern is formed in the same free, naturalistic conception as on the two Ardabils, a manner quite unlike the strict, geometrical gridpattern of the Milan example. The attire, too, separates into two periods: in the Milan work the Safavid täj on the turbans of the hunters is massive and squat, as in the early Safavid manuscript ilustrations.

57 By contrast, on the other carpets we see slender, slim turban batons, those that occur in the classical phase of Shah Tahmäsb 's patronage. According to recent consensus, however, the crucial digit in the Milan cartouche is a 4, and that postulates a dating close to what has been reserved for the others so far.

58 In any case, if the Vienna and the Boston works are dated around 1530-40, the Esterházy appliqué, even more freely and even more naturalistically fashioned, must certainly be contemporaneous with them. The appliqué genre allowed the designers to go one step beyond the free naturalism displayed by the Vienna and Boston works that either superseded or preceded the Milan phase. The two Ardabil carpets (///. 16) are creations on a par with the hunting carpets.

59 These are not figurai, but their decorative and symbolic systems are close to the Budapest work, and what the appliqué shows in an explicit way through its pictures, they redefine by means of abstraction. The Ardabil carpets are of medallion structure. In the middle of both shines a sixteen-pointed solar stylisation; around it are sixteen polylobed formations with pointed tips and at its heart is a conventionalised pool of water. Equal segments of this monumental pattern are repeated in the four comers of the middle field, as if it was an infinite network of which a basic unit had been revealed in the centre, continued, invisibly, under the bordure. The appliqué turns this pattern into pictorial language: we can easily identify the pool with the fountain, and the suns in the comers with the solar faces. Here, too, the most brilliant sun is in the middle, yet here the solar and the royal faces are in "conjunction": the theme from which carpets intended for Ardabil, the Safavids' sacral centre, wove an ecstatic religious symbol, was recreated by the mastercraftsmen of the Budapest appliqué as a political triumph. In the Safavid theocracy every secular symbol was at the same time a spiritual reality also. This is exemplified by, among others, the Sanguszko carpets, a group consisting of a dozen works.

60 Here the pendants of the angels in Budapest are placed in "sun gates" similar to the Ardabil ones,

61 while in their hands are different kinds of animals, among them peacocks known from the Esterházy appliqué. This group of works was made during Shah Tahmäsb Ts later period, and it is a characteristic tendency that of the stock of themes on view in the Budapest or Vienna works only the parts with the angels have been preserved, in conformity with the newly formulated aesthetics, prescribed by the increasingly devout ruler. Another tendency, a preference for stereotypical figures (for example, Kosrov and Sirin) also arose, suggesting that the Sanguszko carpets were to satisfy the demands of wealthy customers and were not works for the court. Those with a liking to decipher traditional (aniconic) symbolism of rug patterns may very profitably study carpets supplied with systems of figurai depiction, since they model the same closed landscape of paradise, only more didactically. From the late sixteenth century onwards, however, symbolic content can be attributed to motifs less and less, as market conditions began to erode these. IV. Conclusions IV. 1. Function So far we have seen that nothing is certain in connection with the Esterházy appliqué. Again, it is the isolation of the artefact that can be blamed for the fact that a basis for the establishment of function is as tenuous as for style and dating. The basic principle nevertheless continues to be that the primary source for the investigation of the artefact must be regarded as the artefact itself. In accordance with this it