PREVIOUS NEXT NEW SEARCH

Selections of Arabic, Persian, and Ottoman Calligraphy

Click on picture for larger image, full item, or more versions    [Rights and Reproductions]
  
thumbnail

Verses by Jami

AUTHOR/CREATOR
Calligrapher: Mahmud b. Mawlana Khwajah

CREATED/PUBLISHED
16th century (?)

NOTES
This calligraphic fragment includes verses composed by the Persian poet Jami (d. 897/1492), whose full name (Mawlana 'Abd al-Rahman Jami) is noted in the topmost panel. In larger script appears a lyric poem (ghazal), in which a lover sighs and complains about the lack of news from his beloved. The central text frames, bordered on the right and left by illuminated panels, contain an iambic pentameter quatrain (ruba'i) written in smaller script. The quatrain encourages true and eternal love of God rather than passing infatuations:

Har surat-i dilkash ka tura ruy namud / Khwahad falakash zud za chasm-i tu rubud / Ru dil bi-kasi dah ka dar atvar-i vujud / Bud ast hamisha ba tu u khwahad bud

Every beautiful face that manifested itself to you / Quickly the heavens will remove it from your eyes / Go and give your heart to the person in the bounds of existence / Who has always been with you, and always will

The text is executed in black nasta'liq script on a blue piece of paper sprinkled with gold flecks. Every verse is framed by a gold line and separated by a gutter or border illuminated with panels in gold, pink, and orange hues. The whole of the text panel is pasted onto a larger orange sheet of paper backed by cardboard.

In the lowest panel appears the calligrapher's signature, which reads: mashaqahu al-'abd (written by the servant) Mahmud b. Mawlana Khwajah. Although very little is known about this calligrapher, the hues and decorative motifs of this fragment suggest that it was made in Central Asia (perhaps in Shaybanid Bukhara or Samarqand) during the 16th century.

Dimensions of Written Surface: 12.5 (w) x 21.5 (h) cm

Script: nasta'liq

SUBJECT
Arabic calligraphy
Poetry
Nasta'liq
Islamic manuscripts
Islamic calligraphy
Arabic script calligraphy
Illuminated Islamic manuscripts

MEDIUM
14.2 (w) x 23.8 (h) cm

CALL NUMBER
1-85-154.73b

REPOSITORY
Library of Congress, African and Middle Eastern Division, Washington, D.C. 20540

DIGITAL ID
ascs 119
http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.amed/ascs.119

PREVIOUS NEXT NEW SEARCH