there; an efficient and fastidious librarian had them bound together with
other unrelated illustrations belonging to the workshop; and thus they were
separated into several bound albums。 Hasan fled Istanbul; and disappeared;
never to be heard from again。 Shevket and Orhan never forgot that it wasn’t
Black but their Uncle Hasan who was the one who killed my father’s murderer。
In place of Master Osman; who died two years after going blind; Stork
became Head Illuminator。 Butterfly; y late
father’s talents; devoted the rest of his life to drawing ornamental designs for
carpets; cloths and tents。 The young assistant masters of the workshop gave
themselves over to similar work。 No one behaved as though abandoning
illustration were any great loss。 Perhaps because nobody had ever seen his own
face done justice on the page。
My whole life; I’ve secretly very much wanted two paintings made; which
I’ve never mentioned to anybody:
1。 My own portrait; but I knew however hard the Sultan’s miniaturists
tried; they’d fail; because even if they could see my beauty; woefully; none of
them would believe a woman’s face was beautiful without depicting her eyes
and lips like a Chinese woman’s。 Had they represented me as a Chinese beauty;
the way the old masters of Herat would’ve; perhap