Sample of Persian Calligraphy from a Mughal Album

16th century; margins 17th century

Set against a gilded background, two couplets of romantic poetry appear in the elegant nastaʿlīq script. The face of the beloved, considered the reflection of divine love, is fittingly compared to a bright moon and admired for its beauty: “Your face is flushed [and] has become [like] a bright moon; you have exalted your stature [and] have become the envy of the [tall] cypress.” A signature identifying “the lowly scribe, ʿAli” may refer to the talented sixteenth-century calligrapher Mir ʿAli al-Husayni al-Katib al-Haravi, also known as Mir ʿAli. The calligraphy was mounted on a seventeenth-century Indian album page decorated with flora and fauna in a Europeanizing style typical of the Mughal artistic tradition. It is possible that the folio, like the page with a portrait of the Sufi Shaykh Chishti displayed nearby, once belonged to the Shah Jahan Album.