TEA & PERSIAN ART HISTORY:

WADING THROUGH TIME

 

(BASED ON THE PAINTING

“WOMEN AROUND A SAMOVAR”

BY ISMA’IL JALAYIR 1860-75)

 

Last week I time-traveled

But my memory faded almost instantly

I remember drinking tea and

Having my fortune read by tasseomancy

It was the 1860s

One hundred years before

I would break out of

Shyness and autism

Becoming a radical hippie

Forgive the digression, dear reader

Maybe I should start

With my love of Persian art

When a friend sent me a painting

By Isma’il Jalayir

Women Around a Samovar

(Popular name according to

The Victoria and Albert Museum)

I do love samovars

And Gran taught me how to read

Tea Leaves

So I gazed at the amazing women

In their long dresses

But on the left is one

Wearing a short skirt

And I think

How can this be?

Who is she?

Reminiscent of me

Dark, curly hair

Not pretty but a certain ancient beauty

And I wonder if she is an ancestor

Triggering genetic memory

Then I notice

All the women are dressed oddly

An alternate title of the painting is

Women Dancing Around A Samovar

And one writer feels they are a harem

Perhaps being entertained by a ballet troop

I look for a tasseomancer

Reading their leaves

I move among them,

Invisible,

In my time machine

Here is one with a pipe

And the aroma of cherry wood

Drifts among the bamboo bouquet

Of Lapsang Souchong

One of my favorites

I look at the women

Who strangely seem wooden

And find myself trying

To become visible to the one

In the blue skirt

Perhaps she was descended from family

When India exiled the Roma

In the 11^th Century

Is she a great, great, great aunt of mine?

The Romani diaspora

Carried families to all parts of Asia and Europe

Perhaps she was from a family

Of tea leaf readers

Or

Part of the harem

Once captured by the Ottomans

While they warred with Vlad the Impaler

In the wilds of Roumania and Hungary

Birthplace of my father

I get as close as possible

Sniffing her cup of tea

As she drinks rapidly

Wanting to hear her future

Or impart one to others

But then the darkness swirls

And the 21^st Century

Drags me back

And I am left with the painting

On my computer screen

So I brew a cup of

Bamboo-laden

Russian Caravan Tea

To see

Where the Time machine

Will next carry me…

 

© 2025 Clarissa Simmens (ViataMaja)

IMAGE Women Around A Samovar By Isma’il Jalayir 1860-75)