Aegidius Sadeler II (d. 1629), Zeynal Khan and Mehdi Quli Beg, Persian ambassadors to the court of Rudolf II
Prague, 1604 and 1605copperplate engravings on paper, inscribed in Latin and Persian
262 x 195 mm. (sheet); 265 x 183 mm. (sheet)(2)注脚Aegidius Sadeler was born around 1570 in Antwerp. His early career took him to Frankfurt, Munich and Rome where he worked with several artists who subsequently worked for Rudolf's court with Joris Hoefnagel, Hans von Aachen and Joseph Heintz the Elder. Once these artists moved to the Imperial court, they recommended Sadeler to the Emperor; in 1597 he was appointed to the court himself, where he became the most illustrious engraver of his time.
Two versions of the portrait of Mehdi Quli Beg are now in the British Museum, London, inv.no.1868,0808.2488 and 1871,0812.4208; one in the Victoria & Albert Museum, London, inv.no.E.5423-1919; another in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, inv.no.49.95.2202 and one in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, inv.no.M26883.

Zeynal Khan Shamlu, and later, Mehdi Qoli Beg, were amongst seven ambassadors sent by Shah 'Abbas to European courts, as part of his attempt to enlist Christian cooperation in confronting the Ottomans with a multi-front threat. The ongoing war in Hungary had led to financial strains, internal revolts and a decline in loyalty of Ottoman troops; to 'Abbas these troubles signalled that the Ottoman adversary had been weakened to the point where his revived Persian army could reclaim the territory lost in the previous war. Zeynal Khan Shamlu departed in mid-1603 and arrived in Prague on 19th July 1604 to much fanfare. He and his party of 30 servants were given an escort of over one thousand men, mounted and on foot. Mehdi Quli Beg arrived later, in December, updating Rudolf on the situation. After endless debate and vacillation, Rudolf elected to begin peace negotiations with the Ottomans. All this meant that the Persian ambassadors were fixtures in Prague until October 1605, and were doubtless regarded as exotic figures (something captured in the insistence on using Persian for the prints, which no one in Prague could read and which would have taken some effort to reproduce).