Four folios of calligraphy

Details

Four folios of calligraphy
by Sultan Muhammad Nur
Herat, 16th century

from a manuscript comprising ghazals by Hafiz and Amir Khusraw Dihlavi, Persian manuscript on buff, green or blue paper, each with 8ll. of very elegant nasta'liq written diagonally in gold, white, yellow, red and blue, a further couplet written vertically in a panel at the side, blue or green and gold margins between black rules, gold and polychrome illuminated triangular panels above and below, each folio signed on one side by Sultan Muhammad Nur, each with an illuminated floral border and a border of rectangular inscription cartouches on coloured or marbled paper ground, gold, green, red and blue outer margins between black rules, blue outer rule, mounted on gold-sprinkled buff or blue leaf
central panel 6½ x 3½in. (16.7 x 8.8cm.)
folio 14 x 9in. (35.4 x 23.3cm.) (4)

Literature

Minorsky,V.: Calligraphers and Painters, Washington 1959, pp. 10, 33, 100-106, 134-8, 152-3
Schimmel, A.: Calligraphy and Islamic Culture, New York 1984, pp.67 197
Soudavar, A.: Art of the Persian Courts, New York 1992, pp.152, 158, 210.

Lot Essay

Sultan Muhammad Nur was the son and pupil of the calligrapher Sultan 'Ali (Mashhadi) and was born in 1472. He is known to have worked in Herat particularly in the first half of the 16th century and died after 1572. A folio of his calligraphy is published in Soudavar, A.: ibid, no.58, p.158

The album from which these and the folios of the following two lots come is of extremely high quality. The standard of both the calligraphy and the mounts suggest that it was put together for an important, possibly royal, patron.
Although the majority of the calligraphy is Persian, features such as the use of marbled paper suggest that the album may have been complied in Turkey. Folios from several similar albums are shown in Islamic Calligraphy, Exhibition Catalogue, Geneva 1988, nos 110 and 140, and The age of Sulaiman the Magnificent, Exhibition Catalogue, Washington 1987, p.60, fig 18b.

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