The earliest known portraits of Iranians by Westerners reached record prices in the October 2010 Christies sales: £157,250 for a 1604 drawing of “Mehdi Quli Bey”; and , with his even more extravagant mustachios (against estimates of £35-50,000). Click on the links to see what you might have bought, if you had this sort of money.
Until 23 March 2011 there is a chance to see a 1605 engraving of one of the men, named slightly differently as “Mechti Quli Beg”. I’ve included an e-copy here – but the original is much clearer and much more fun: you can get up very close indeed in the current Brunei gallery exhibition – though, of course, please don’t touch. Go downstairs and turn right, if you visit; or click here to see a good copy in the Met collection.
In response to a 1593 envoy from the Habsburg Emperor Rudolph II, the men shown in these images were part of the first ever Persian embassy to Europe.
Shah Abbas I had been persuaded to embark on this by Anthony Shirley – often called an Adventurer, but since he stole most of the gifts for the foreign rulers (thereby ruining the purpose of the embassy, and not exactly helping his brother Robert, who had been left in Persia as a hostage), perhaps more accurately described as a Scoundrel.
The first Persian ambassador was one Hosayn Ali Beg, the uncle of Mechti Quli Beg / Mehdi Quli Bey. The group set off in 1599 via Astrakhan and Moscow, reaching Prague on 7 Nov 1600. There, the Persians were apparently “deeply impressed by the sumptuousness of the imperial palace, the courtly splendour of their reception and the affable condescension of the Emperor”. This imperial magnificence is illustrated in the so-called Stockholm Roll, an enormously long painting commemorating the 1605 wedding procession of Constance of Austria and Sigismund III into Cracow. This includes the 1604 Persian embassy, in the sixteenth of thirty-four panels. Click here and scroll down to see more – it’s just amazing!
After the splendid welcome in Eastern Europe, things went downhill for the first Persian embassy. In Rome, Shirley left after bitter recriminations and even actual physical violence against poor Hosayn Ali Beg. Then in Spain, three of the principal members of the embassy converted to Christianity and so couldn’t return to Persia. One of them, renamed as “Don Juan”, even wrote a book (click here to read it) about his adventures.