AN ILLUMINATED PAGE OF CALLIGRAPHY IN GOLD NASTA'LIQ SCRIPT BY IMAD AL-HASSANI, PERSIA, PERHAPS KHURASAN, CIRCA 1596-1599

Estimate

2,000 - 3,000 GBP

bidding is closed

Description

8 1/2 x 4 inches

Opaque watercolour and gold on paper, four lines of fine nasta'liq script written diagonally in gold on brown paper surrounded by dense floral illumination in colours on a blue ground, signed at lower left, mounted with narrow borders of plain, stout paper

Provenance

Adrienne Minassian, New York, 1955

Exhibited

Calligraphy in the Arts of the Muslim World, The Asia House Gallery, New York; the Cincinnati Art Museum, the Seattle Art Museum, the St. Louis Art Museum, 1979

Literature

Welch A. 1979, no.56, pp.140-141

Catalogue Note

Imad al-Hasani (d. A.H. 1024/A.D. 1615) was the most famous nasta'liq calligrapher of the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries in Iran. He was born around 1552 in Qazwin and was pupil of the masters Malik al-Dailami and Muhammad Husain. He travelled widely in Persia and the Middle East, performing the Hajj and staying at Aleppo from 1594-96. On returning to Iran he worked as a chancellery scribe and a librarian under Farhad Khan Qaramanlu in Khurasan and elsewhere, but after his patron was murdered in 1598-99, Imad joined the court of Shah Abbas. His new appointment caused a great stir amongst the established artists and calligraphers of the royal atelier, whose envy eventually brought about accusations of heresy towards Imad, and the hapless calligrapher was put to death. Imad's recorded works date from 1564 to 1615 and were highly sought after in his own lifetime in Persia, Turkey and India. Qadi Ahmad refers to him as the "second Mir Ali" (Minorsky 1959, p.167).

The text is an aphorism in Chagatay.