A CALLIGRAPHIC ALBUM PAGE BY MIR 'ALI AL-HARAWI (AL-KATIB AL-SULTANI), SAFAVID, PERSIA, 16TH CENTURY

Ink, gouache and gold on paper pasted on a cardboard page, four in Persian, in Nastaliq, in reserve in clouds on a gold background garnished with foliage, was pasted onto a folio and decorated with several borders of lavish illumination. The writing itself is surrounded with cloudlike bubbles, around which miniature irises, lilies, and other plants bloom. Text: 33 by 21.5 cm. Page: 40 by 27 cm.CATALOGUE NOTE Mir 'Ali al-Harawi is the well-known and celebrated nastaliq calligrapher of Herat under the Timurids and then the Safavids. He studied in this city and spent most of his life working as a scribe of firmans and then at the Royal Library of the Timurid Sultan Husayn Bayqara, from whom he received the title Sultani. After the death of the Sultan in AH 911/1505 AD, he moved from Herat to Mashhad but later returned to Herat. After the capture of the town by the Safavid ruler Shah Isma'il, Mir 'Ali worked under the patronage of Khaja Karim al-Din Habibullah Savaji, the Minister to the Governor of Khurasan, Sam Mirza, a brother of Shah Tahmasp. Later he was taken to Bukhara together with other artists after the capture of the city by the Uzbek ruler 'Ubayd Khan in AH 935/1529 AD. His recorded works are dated between AH 914/1508-09 AD and AH 951/1544-45 AD (M. Bayani, Ahval va-Asar-e Khoshnevisan, vol.II, Tehran, 1988, p. 494).