Album of calligraphic exercises

h. 1008 [1599]

The Persian colophon writes, ‘Written by the humble sinning Imadü’l-Hasenî. May his sins be forgiven and his wrongdoing veiled.’ The date is written in numerals. The calligrapher was employed by the Safavid bureaucrat and bibliophile Ferhadhan Karamanlı (d.1598), and worked in Kazvin, Tabriz and Isfahan during the reign of the Safavid shah Abbas I (r. 1587-1629). He was a master of the talik hand who wrote many kıt’a (short calligraphic compositions) and copied works of literature, some of which were illustrated. The colophon of the album is written in two columns, and the field of writing is encircled by a border of pink and blue paper and a gold-ruled border (f. 5v). Broad margins have been added by means of the vassale collage technique and decorated with slender branches, leaves, buds and hatayi flowers executed in halkâr style gilding. The margins also contain cartouches filled with gilded slender branches and leaves on lapis blue and cinnamon coloured grounds. On another leaf of the album (f. 3v) the writing is again arranged in two columns and surrounded by a border of pink and lapis blue paper. In the margin are cypress tree, flower and animal motifs executed by spraying paint onto stencils. These motifs are outlined in gold. Particularly in the 16th century decorating the margins of books with halkâr gilding and stencilling was popular among the Ottomans, Safavids, Baburids and Uzbeks. Prominent Safavid artists were particularly skilled at the stencilling technique, producing exceptional examples using distinctive colours and a diversity of motifs.