Calligraphic panel

Mehmed Hulusi Yazgan is one of the most celebrated late Ottoman calligraphers. He specialised in the talik script, which he studied under the great 19th century master calligrapher Sami Efendi (d. 1912).This composition written in celi talik consists of a couplet from Terkib-i Bend, a Turkish poem by the Ottoman writer, poet and statesman Abdülhamid Ziyaeddin (d. 1880), better known as Ziya Paşa:

Drink wine and love well if you have the wits to do so
I care not about the world, whether it exists or ceases to exist

Beneath the last line the calligrapher has written his colophon: Nemakahu Hulûsî ğufira zunûbuhu (Hulusi wrote this. May his sins be forgiven). The ground is filled with halkâr style gilded decoration.