It seems only to be the King who gets to feast up in the tree-house in this gorgeous folio from a Khamsa of Amir Khusrau in the Metropolitan Museum in New York. Wouldn’t that make conversation difficult, even there is a great view of the dancing?
Maybe the courtiers down below are struggling with the ta’arof: You go first … no, you … no, no you …
The recent Met blog on an Abbasid ‘Miss Manners’ quotes from the ninth-century Iraqi author Abu ‘Uthman al-Jahiz in his Book of Misers, and describes some of the ill-mannered guests you might get (or be!) around Thanksgiving:
“The pot-picker takes from the pot before the food is served, the bread-sponger uses his bread to soak up the fat before anyone else has a chance, and the stone-switcher mixes his date pits with those of the person next to him so as to disguise his own gluttony. There are even words for double-dippers (“biters”), party-crashers (“guest’s guests”), and those who don’t wash their hands before tucking into the food.”
Click here to read the whole of the great Met blog.
My posting is, of course, to help out those of you who can’t decide what to buy as a Christmas gift for the person who has everything – a garden and a treehouse like this will surely always be welcome.
Not that I’m hinting or anything!
Don’t forget, though, it’s not just about the company and the surroundings: “As long as the soup is good, do not worry if the bowl is pretty!”
This month, I want to show you the most glorious image: of food and feasting in a Safavid treehouse. Are all those courtiers down below simply struggling with ta’arof: You go first … no, you … no, no you …
There are also two linked posts showing how Western views of what is ‘Eastern’ dominate two exhibitions – the 1867 Exposition Universelle, and Munich 1910
And I was fascinated by a video showing the restoration of one of the very best Persian carpets. Once the property of Czar Peter the Great, who gifted it to the Hapsburgs for their Summer Palace – the Met spent three years removing 700 patches upon patches.
If you want to see these as they come out, you could follow me @caromawer on Twitter
I’ve been fascinated and researched about the art, painting and other treasures of this period.
I enjoy very much your blog which I’ve discovered not a long time ago.
Kind Regards
Laurence