IMPORTANT ALBUM PAGE WITH CALLIGRAPHY SIGNED ALI AL-HUSAYNI (MIR ALI HERAVI, D. 1544)

Project Details

IMPORTANT ALBUM PAGE WITH CALLIGRAPHY SIGNED ALI AL-HUSAYNI (MIR ALI HERAVI, D. 1544)

Possibly Bukhara or Herat.

Dimensions: Text Panel: 20 x 12 cm. Leaf: 32 x 23 cm.

Persian manuscript on paper, the quatrain written diagonally in black nasta’liq script. The panel decorated with polychrome and gold floral scrolls against a blue ground. The central calligraphy encircled by eight cartouches of black nasta’liq within clouds against a gold ground decorated with polychrome scrolls. The right marginf with three illuminated devices. The cartouches in the margins are couplets from Sa’adi’s Gulistan. Framed.

The excellence of the calligraphy in the central panel, signed by Ali al-Husayni, indicates that this is noone other than the famous court calligrapher Mir Ali Heravi, who also signed his name Ali al-Husayni. The best known example of this application is the anthology of poetry, made in 1524, for Vizier Khawaja Malik Ahmad, who was governor of Herat under Shah Ismail. “The anthology bears the signatures of several masters including Ali al-Husayni (that is, Mir Ali), Muhammad Qasim b Shadishah and Muhammad Khandan”. See: David Roxburgh, The Persian Album, Yale University Press, 2005, p. 179.

An illustrated copy of the Panj Ganj of Abd al-Rahman Jami, signed Ali Husayni is in the Golestan Palace Library (inv. no. 709). A Gulistan copied in 975 (1567/68) and signed Mir Ali Husayni (Mir Ali al-Husayni al-Katib al-Sultani) in Bukhara is in the British Library (BL Or 5302). It includes six Bukhara-style paintings which were commissioned at Akbar’s request.

A highly important copy of Sa’di’s Gulistan, copied by Mir Ali al-Husayni and illustrated by Mughal court artists, is in the British Library (Or. 5302). Please see the exhibition catalogue, Mughal India – Art, Culture and Empire: Manuscripts and Paintings in the British Library, authors: J. P. Losty & Malini Roy, British Library, pp. 93-95.

Mir Ali Heravi started working in Herat, at the Timurid court of Sultan Husayn Bayqara where he was given the titles “sultani” (the royal) and “katib al-sultani” (the calligrapher of the sultan). After the capture of Herat in 1528 he was taken to Bukhara by the Uzbek Ubaydullah Khan where he died in 1544. His recorded works copied in both Herat and Bukhara are dated between 914 AH (1508-09 AD) and 951 AH (1544 AD) (Mehdi Bayani, Ahval va Asar-e Khosh-Navisan, vol.2, Tehran, 1346, pp. 493-516).

Provenance

Private UK Collection.

Ex-Private French Collection

Categories: Calligraphy & Miniatures

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IMPORTANT ALBUM PAGE WITH CALLIGRAPHY SIGNED ALI AL-HUSAYNI (MIR ALI HERAVI, D. 1544)

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