Catalogue Entry: Saki (Kneeling Servant)
Saki (Kneeling Servant) (fig. 1) is a miniature folio, drawn with ink and painted with opaque watercolor onto paper by Āqā Riżā Kāshānī (Reza Abbasi). There are also subtle gold leaf ornamentations on the painting, visible in the background. The border of the miniature is intricately decorated in a similar color scheme to the miniature itself (fig. 2). The folio features a male youth kneeling and serving coffee, dressed in ornate garments and surrounded by natural vegetal elements.[i] The painting is dated 1038 A.H., or 1629 A.D. Though not much information is available on the history of the piece, it currently exists in the Golestan Palace Library in Tehran as part of a larger album. During the Safavid period, Isfahan was the capital of then-Persia, making it a significant center for the arts. However, Tehran has since become the capital of Iran, and it is possible that the painting was moved from Isfahan to Tehran to be housed in the Golestan Palace.
The style of the painting is similar to other miniatures by Reza Abbasi, such as Youth Dressed as a Dervish (fig. 3), Man in a Fur-Lined Coat (fig. 4), and The Lovers (fig. 5). It should be noted that the style of a single figure or two figures against a minimal background was generally popular in Persian miniature artwork. The four artworks shown by Reza Abbasi are in line with standards of Persian miniatures, but also share elements amongst themselves worth noting. The subjects are of pale complexion, have delicate facial features, and are set against a monochrome background decorated with various vegetal features, sometimes ornamented with gold. Even the faces of each subject are similar, sharing youthful arched eyebrows, smiling eyes, and small mouths. The Lovers and Man in a Fur-Lined Coat have an additional aspect in common with Saki – the presence of a dish or vessel for food or drink in the bottom left-hand corner. In The Lovers, the refreshments consist of a bottle of deep red liquid (presumably wine) along with small fruits, perhaps pears or stone fruits like plums. In Man in a Fur-Lined Coat, the subject enjoys a plate of what are presumably pears and pomegranates. Saki features a darkened coffee pot, from which the subject serves coffee in delicate white china cups adorned with blue embellishments. This seems to be the common way to serve coffee – it was often served unsweetened with pistachios and other treats on the side.[ii] There is a possibility that the coffee pot in Reza Abbasi’s painting may have at one point been silver but oxidized to the dark color it appears as now.[iii] These similarities in Reza Abbasi’s work do not indicate a lack of skill or creativity on the artist’s part, but rather a distinct and cohesive artistic style of repeated motifs blended together in various combinations.[iv] Reza Abbasi was at the forefront of Safavid art during his lifetime and is considered one of the greatest Persian miniaturists of the Isfahan School. Most of his career was spent working for Shah Abbas I, who himself would frequent the coffeehouses that the subject of Saki works in to observe the state of public political ideology.[v]
Unlike more publicly displayed works of art, Persian miniatures were typically viewed in a more intimate setting. Miniatures were typically part of manuscripts, with intricate borders around the paintings themselves to fully occupy the page. These were not unlike the illuminated manuscripts of medieval Europe – both featured similarly intricate drawings along with ornate embellishments. Persian miniatures also appeared in muraqqas, which are albums bound as books that feature art and calligraphy.[vi] Saki itself is part of a muraqqa – the Muraqqa-e Golshan. Because of the more intimate nature of miniature viewing, it is possible that Saki and other works by Reza Abbasi are depictions of real-life youths who worked in the coffeehouses and in other public spaces, either through commissions by wealthy coffeehouse patrons or as inspirations to Reza Abbasi himself.[vii] The similarly stylized faces of Reza Abbasi’s subjects would have made it difficult to identify their real-world counterparts, so it is likely that the identifying features lay instead in the figures’ outfits or their demeanors.[viii]
Saki is a depiction of one of the most important aspects of coffeehouse culture – the serving and consumption of coffee. Coffee carried a variety of reputations in the early modern age, with some believing it was harmful to a person’s health and others arguing for its medical benefits. In the wider public sphere, though, it was simply a recreational drink to enjoy in good company.[ix] As stated before, coffee was served without sugar added in; the sweetener was served on the side in the form of little treats.[x] The pictural elements of Saki work to emulate the environment of the coffeehouse. The narcissus flower precariously tucked into the back of the server’s sash and the swirling steam of the coffee suggest the various aromas of the scene, and the way that the server carefully holds the cup by its brim implies the tactile sense of its heat.[xi] To the Safavid viewer, this artwork would echo an experience that they had at least heard about, if not experienced. There were many other boys just like the one depicted in Saki that would serve coffeehouse patrons. Therefore, the miniature may have served as a way to reminisce on the coffeehouse, or perhaps the youth himself in a context of desire. The involvement of coffeehouse objects in the painting also indicates a changing social sphere – as Reza Abbasi added in elements like the white china cups decorated with blue or the coffeepot in the bottom left corner, he (knowingly or unknowingly) allowed coffeehouse culture to creep into his artwork, finding a space for itself to occupy in a culturally changing artistic landscape. His status as a prominent artist in the Safavid Isfahan School may have also had an impact on the work of other artists in similar communities.
At a similar time, the Ottoman Empire was also participating in the novel culture of the coffeehouse, in a similar format to its Safavid counterpart. Servants like the one depicted in Saki also worked at Ottoman coffeehouses, and they had two jobs – to serve coffee to patrons, and to be nice to look at.[xii] The servants, often young boys, would enhance the atmosphere simply by being there, adding yet another visual element to the coffeehouse – one of desire. The origins of this practice are unclear, but the young male servants of the coffeehouse eventually became their own part of the coffeehouse community. As the culture of the coffeehouses developed, so too did the patrons’ relationships with the young male servants who worked there. Mughal Indian art from a similar time period has been interpreted through a homoerotic lens despite an absence of any explicitly homoerotic content in the painting.[xiii] Govardhan’s Sa’di in the Rose Garden (fig. 6) could be interpreted as a depiction of a similarly pederastic relationship, this time between a teacher and his student.
The garden is one possible motif representing passion, and Govardhan may have used elements of the garden – such as the suggestive proximity of the flowers to the thrower’s groin and the intimate touches the two men share – to further flesh out the relationship between Sa’di and his student. Though unlikely, this association between the garden and erotic desire is interesting when applied to Reza Abbasi’s paintings, which often feature vegetal elements in the background. Perhaps this is an allusion to how he or the clients who commissioned these works felt about the subjects. It’s perhaps more likely a coincidence – vegetal symbols are common in Persian miniatures and Islamic art as a whole already, and while fun to explore theories, one must not get too carried away. However, it remains true that older coffeehouse patrons would engage in homoerotic relationships with the young male servants of the coffeehouses.
The observation of “beautiful boys” was not a novel concept to Ottomans – the Ottoman Empire had been seeing pederastic relationships in literature and love poetry for centuries in what has been termed “The Age of Beloveds.”[xiv] Russian travelers visiting Isfahan in the seventeenth century also specifically noticed the presence of young, attractive males during festivities thrown by the Shah. The trope of the Eastern “beautiful boy” has often been used by Western travelers as a way to “other” Eastern societies due to their discomfort with homoeroticism. However, as cultural ideas and standards changed, and as Shah Abbas II followed Shah Abbas I, coffeehouses began to garner scrutiny from government officials for practices the government deemed immoral.[xv] The reputation of the coffeehouses soured as time passed (partially because of a growing association with pederasty and sodomy), with laws eventually being put in place in the late seventeenth century declaring that no minors would be able to enter the establishments without supervision.[xvi] However, Reza Abbasi’s artwork, Saki in particular, serves as a multi-layered snapshot into the atmosphere of the coffeehouse. Its ability to infuse the reader with its sensory pictural depictions, the role of the kneeling servant within the coffeehouse space, and the underlying elements of desire for this “beautiful boy” effectively converge and condense into a single Persian miniature.
Endnotes
- Canby, Sheila R., and ʻAbbāsī Riz̤ā-ʼi. The Rebellious Reformer: The Drawings and Paintings of Riza-Yi Abbasi of Isfahan. 161.
- Matthee, Rudi. “Coffee in Safavid Iran: Commerce and Consumption.” 160.
- Gray, Basil. Persian Painting.
- Canby, Sheila R., and ʻAbbāsī Riz̤ā-ʼi. The Rebellious Reformer: The Drawings and Paintings of Riza-Yi Abbasi of Isfahan. 161.
- Emami, Farshid. “Coffee Houses, Urban Spaces, and the Formation of a Public Sphere in Safavid Isfahan.” 207.
- Valentiner, Wilhelm R. “Persian Miniatures.” The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 7, no. 2 (1912) 37.
- Canby, Sheila R., and ʻAbbāsī Riz̤ā-ʼi. The Rebellious Reformer: The Drawings and Paintings of Riza-Yi Abbasi of Isfahan. 158.
- Canby, Sheila R., and ʻAbbāsī Riz̤ā-ʼi. The Rebellious Reformer: The Drawings and Paintings of Riza-Yi Abbasi of Isfahan. 158.
- Matthee, Rudi. “Coffee in Safavid Iran: Commerce and Consumption.” 160.
- Matthee, Rudi. “Coffee in Safavid Iran: Commerce and Consumption.” 160.
- Emami, Farshid. “Coffee Houses, Urban Spaces, and the Formation of a Public Sphere in Safavid Isfahan.” 206.
- Karababa, Emİnegül, and Gülİz Ger. “Early Modern Ottoman Coffeehouse Culture and the Formation of the Consumer Subject.”
- NATIF, MIKA. Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme. 47.
- Andrews, Walter G., and Mehmet Kalpaklı. The Age of Beloveds: Love and the Beloved in Early-Modern Ottoman and European Culture and Society. 32.
- Matthee, Rudi. “Coffee in Safavid Iran: Commerce and Consumption.” 171-172.
- Matthee, Rudi. “Coffee in Safavid Iran: Commerce and Consumption.” 172.
Bibliography
Andrews, Walter G., and Mehmet Kalpaklı. “Beloved Boys (and Girls).” In The Age of Beloveds: Love and the Beloved in Early-Modern Ottoman and European Culture and Society. 32-58. Durham: Duke Univ. Press, 2006.
Boone, Joseph Allen. “Beautiful Boys, Sodomy, and Hamams: A Textual and Visual History of Tropes”. In The Homoerotics of Orientalism, 51-108. Columbia University Press, 2014. http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.7312/boon15110.6.
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Basil, Gray. Persian Painting. New York: Skira; distributed by World Pub, Co., Cleveland, 1961.
Karababa, Emİnegül, and Gülİz Ger. “Early Modern Ottoman Coffeehouse Culture and the Formation of the Consumer Subject.” Journal of Consumer Research 37, no. 5(2011): 737-60. https://doi.org/10.1086/656422.
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Matthee, Rudi. “Coffee in Safavid Iran: Commerce and Consumption.” In The Pursuit of Pleasure: Drugs and Stimulants in Iranian History, 1500-1900, 44-174. Princeton University Press, 2005. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv1g248wt.14.
Murray, Stephen O. “Homosexuality in the Ottoman Empire.” Historical Reflections / Réflexions Historiques 33, no. 1 (2007): 101–16. http://www.jstor.org/stable/41299403
NATIF, MIKA. “Renaissance Painting and Expressions of Male Intimacy in a Seventeenth-Century Illustration from Mughal India.” Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme 38, no. 4 (2015): 41–64
PEIRCE, LESLIE. “Writing Histories of Sexuality in the Middle East.” The American Historical Review 114, no. 5 (2009): 1325–39. http://www.jstor.org/stable/23303429.