Lot Essay
A very similar album of calligraphic exercises in naskh and thuluth scripts was in the Edwin Binney 3rd Collection, Harvard University Museums, Arthur M. Sackler Museum and signed by al-Hajj al-'Arif, dated 1896-97 AD (Mary McWilliams and David J. Roxburgh, Traces of the Calligrapher, Islamic Calligraphy in Practice, c. 1600-1900, exhibition catalogue, Houston, 2007, fig. 51, pp.76-77). See also a fine example, signed Salih al-Khalis Erzerumi, dated AH 1297 in Mohammed Ali Karimzadeh Tabrizi, Ijazat Nameh, The most unique and precious document in Ottoman calligraphy, London, 1999, pp.144-145.