.jpg?w=1)
.jpg?w=1)
Lot Essay
Large calligraphic compositions such as this became popular in the Qajar period. They were believed to have intrinsic talismanic properties, and hence were copied on extremely thin parchment paper in order that they could be folded and stored in a small case to be carried on one's person. This parchment paper was more usually used as interleaves in illustrated or illuminated manuscripts, especially in Qajar Iran, a phenomenon discussed exhaustively in Desvergnes 2015. Though these may have been available commercially, it is also possible that they would have been carried by the copyist. Another large calligraphic composition is in the collection of the Library of Congress, Washington D.C. (Library of Congress Control number 2019714707). Other talismanic sheets featuring charts include examples in the Aga Khan Museum, Toronto (acc.no.AKM536), and another sold in these Rooms, 5 October 2012, lot 705.
On that example, a depiction of Ali, Hasan, Husayn and his brother Abbas are painted in panels at the upper end. The remarkable micrographic example offered here is more unusual in that the figures who appear are realised entirely in calligraphy. Such calligrams depicting the Imam Ali are known, such as on an album folio signed by Ibrahim Danishpishah and dated to AH 1344 / 1924-5 AD which is in the Harvard Art Museum, Cambridge MA (acc.no.1963.90). These draw on an older tradition of Shi'i devotional calligrams dating back to the Safavid period, particularly those symbolically representing Imam Ali as a lion.
The arrangement of figures in the calligram follows a set formula established elsewhere in Qajar visual culture. The same five men - Imam Ali, his sons Hasan and Husayn, their companion Qanbar, and the early Iranian convert to Islam Salman al-Farsi - appear on paintings by Isma'il Jalayir in the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (acc.no.2009.1143) and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (acc.no.2018.500). They appear in the same arrangement as they do in our calligram in another painting in the Harvard Art Museum, which also includes cherub-like angels above the composition (acc.no.1958.137).
On that example, a depiction of Ali, Hasan, Husayn and his brother Abbas are painted in panels at the upper end. The remarkable micrographic example offered here is more unusual in that the figures who appear are realised entirely in calligraphy. Such calligrams depicting the Imam Ali are known, such as on an album folio signed by Ibrahim Danishpishah and dated to AH 1344 / 1924-5 AD which is in the Harvard Art Museum, Cambridge MA (acc.no.1963.90). These draw on an older tradition of Shi'i devotional calligrams dating back to the Safavid period, particularly those symbolically representing Imam Ali as a lion.
The arrangement of figures in the calligram follows a set formula established elsewhere in Qajar visual culture. The same five men - Imam Ali, his sons Hasan and Husayn, their companion Qanbar, and the early Iranian convert to Islam Salman al-Farsi - appear on paintings by Isma'il Jalayir in the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (acc.no.2009.1143) and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (acc.no.2018.500). They appear in the same arrangement as they do in our calligram in another painting in the Harvard Art Museum, which also includes cherub-like angels above the composition (acc.no.1958.137).