“Irregular” Illustrations: Mirzā ʿAli-Qoli Khoʾi’s visual representation of Saʿdi’s poems
Roxana Zenhari
Mirzā ʿAli-Qoli Khoʾi, the most professional artist of lithographic illustration in the Qajar period, has created his pictures in a vast array of genres: holy-religious themes and explicitly sexy scenes are two opposing extremes of his work. In the 34 signed books that have most probably been illustrated by Mirzā ʿAli-Qoli Khoʾi, the artist was faced with different traditions of illustration. For instance, the illustrations to both Ferdousi’s Shāhnāme and Neẓāmi’s Khamse in manuscript tradition refer to a more or less standardized “canonical” iconographical set of models enabling the observer to recognize them easily. Contrasting with the standard models of these works, the Kolleyāt of Saʿdi constitutes a great challenge for illustrators, as they would have to illustrate irregular, unknown themes that had rarely, if ever been illustrated in previous manuscript tradition. Constituting an interesting point of comparison, Mirzā ʿAli-Qoli Khoʾi has illustrated both Neẓāmi’s Khamse and Saʿdi’s Kolleyāt in three different editions. The altogether 120 illustrations in the three editions of Neẓāmi’s Khamse (1847, 1852, 1853) executed by Mirzā ʿAli-Qoli Khoʾi include about 50 scenes, so there is comparatively little variation in terms of scenes or styles in illustration. On the contrary, the altogether 221 illustrations in the three editions of Saʿdi’s Kolleyāt (1851, 1852, 1874) contain a total of 180 different scenes, indicated a limited range of overlap and thus a greater momentum of individual creativity.
My contribution will focus on Mirzā ʿAli-Qoli Khoʾi’s visual interpretation of the stories and verses in Saʿdi’s Kolleyāt, many of which do not belong to the standard corpus of illustrations. Special attention will be devoted to a discussion of the artist’s choices in composing either central illustrations to the text or illustrative and decorative images on the margins.
