recto: "Portrait of Prince Danyal", Folio from the Shah Jahan Album

Manohar|Sultan 'Ali al-Mashhadi

recto: late 16th century; verso: ca. 1500 · Ink, opaque watercolor, and gold on paper · Islamic Art

Verso: This richly illuminated folio of calligraphy features the work of the preeminent Timurid calligrapher, Sultan 'Ali Mashhadi. Patronized by the Timurid court, Mashhadi was a poet and a recognized master of the nasta'liq script. In the following poem, composed by Khwaja Salman al-Savuji, he writes: Coil up in your own tress And then ask how I am, How those are whom the snare Of your affliction broke: You want to know how all Those broken lovers fare– Then ask me first, for I Am the most broken one. This love poem belongs to a larger tradition of mystical poetry in which the lover longs for the unattainable object of his affections. His lover's tresses ensnare him and, hopelessly caught, the poet mourns his plight.

Artist

Manohar|Sultan 'Ali al-Mashhadi

Date

recto: late 16th century; verso: ca. 1500

Medium

Ink, opaque watercolor, and gold on paper

Department

Islamic Art

Credit line

Purchase, Rogers Fund and The Kevorkian Foundation Gift, 1955