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

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

IVÁN SZÁNTÓ REFLECTIONS ON THE ORIGINS OF THE PERSIAN APPLIQUE FROM THE ESTERHÁZY TREASURY If you yearn for the green gardens of the law Without the fountainhead of the glorious royal sword, desist, For no one will find peace for a moment behind the defended walls Without the strife-suppressing might of the king. Shah Tahrnäsb p Introduction

2 1. From artefact to history It is now more than twenty years since Károly Gombos

's key paper on the Esterházy appliqué (Museum of Applied Arts, Budapest; inv. no. 52.2801.1; ///. /) was published in the pages of this journal.

3 That work, as indicated by its short length, confronted only the main questions raised by this mysterious artefact, and although it was unable to gather enough evidence for the answering of them, its findings nevertheless form a convincing base for the continuing of investigations, especially since most of later contributions are sporadic and addressed only to particular aspects of the relic,

4 In what follows I shall, within the framework of wider research on the artefact, likewise deal with one particular aspect: the origins of the work, and I shall try to bring attempts at dating, hitherto moving within generalities, into synchrony with specific events in Persian history and in art history. My intention is no less than to trace back this rarity, still scarcely known, to its contemporaneous connections, in the hope that its matchlessly ambitious iconographical conception will work its way into the picture we have of the period. (Here we have no space for a general description of the appliqué and for the giving of other basic information. For these see the abovementioned article by Gombos, and a recent exhibition catalogue, edited by Sheila R. Canby and Jon Thompson.)

5 The apparent contrast between the importance of the Budapest appliqué and the scanty literature dealing with it lies mainly in an inherent contradiction of our subject. While it comprises a bewildering array of iconographical and thematic range, it remains dumb in respect to all questions on its art historical background. With neither textual evidence, nor comparative material at their disposal, most specialists of the last century were, as shown by literature, widely using their creative intuition wherever their factual deductions needed supplement. It is only this contradiction that helps the student of the topic explaining why he is confronted such an array of different statements that are outdoing even the applique's variety. Through the course of some eighty years of scholarship it was eventually described as a Timurid,

6 an early Safavid,

7 a seventeenth-century Ottoman relic,

8 and, indeed, as a forgery.

9 There is one aspect, however, which has never been considered when attempts to interpret the historical value of the object were made, namely the documentary proof as reflected by the iconography, being its sole historical evidence. Viewing from this point, the lack of data to do with the Esterházy appliqué is not a difficulty, but rather a source of interest. The vast scope of the depiction creates opportunities to divine all information strictly from that most authentic document, the appliqué itself. This method, too, will not regretfully save us from making use of our imagination, but to reduce the demand to the smallest possible degree, this is the way to start out. The undertaking requires the precise opposite of the customary perception in art history: instead of acquiring data on the appliqué from external circumstances, trusting in the historical value of the craftsmanship and