A PAGE FROM THE LATE SHAH JAHAN ALBUM, INDIA, MUGHAL, CIRCA 1635-55, THE CALLIGRAPHY SIGNED BY ALI AL-KATIB, CENTRAL ASIA, EARLY 16TH CENTURY

Ex-private collection, Paris.

Ex-collection Pourtalès, early 20th century.

With Georges Demotte, Paris, 1909.

The Mughal Emperors of the seventeenth century were avid collectors of calligraphy from past eras, and Mir Ali of Herat was the most acclaimed Persian calligrapher of the sixteenth century, whose works were highly sought after. These calligraphic pieces were often assembled into albums, combined with miniatures by the foremost masters of the day, and embellished with finely decorated borders. This approach was particularly popular at the Mughal court, where Shah Jahan (r.1628-58) commissioned several such albums from his court atelier. The present page originates from an album known as the 'Late Shah Jahan Album' containing masterpieces of painting and calligraphy. The album has most frequently been assigned to the period 1635-45, although recently Elaine Wright has published a very thorough account of royal Mughal albums in which she suggests that the assembly of the Late Shah Jahan Album took place in the last decade of Shah Jahan's reign, from around 1650 to 1658 (Wright 2008, p.107).

Many of the borders in the late Shah Jahan Album are decorated with exquisite paintings of flowers, animals and birds, painted by masters of the royal atelier. This was part of a general interest in accurate observation of flora and fauna by Mughal emperors and their artists. Jahangir (r,1605-27) firmly established the natural world as a subject worthy of painting and commissioned naturalistic studies of animals, birds and flowers. This theme and iconography became a central part of the decorative vocabulary of Mughal art in the first half of the seventeenth century. The antelope and deer in the margins of the present page are painted with accuracy and naturalism so that species are clearly identifiable: in the upper margin are a male and female Sambar with their fawns in the upper part of the right margin; at the mid-point of the right margin are a pair of Blackbuck; in the lower margin are a pair of Chinkara.

For illustrations and the most recent and substantial discussion of royal Mughal albums, including the Late Shah Jahan Album, see Wright 2008. See also Geneva 1985, fig. no.146, p.168; Welch and Welch 1982, no.73 p.220; Welch 1985, no.154, p.235.

The calligrapher Ali is probably to be equated with Mir Ali of Herat, one of the master Persian calligraphers of the first half of the sixteenth century. He studied under Zayn al-Din Mahmud and Sultan Ali al-Mashhadi. He was employed at Herat until 1528 when he was taken by the conquering Uzbek warlord Ubayd Khan to Bukhara, where he stayed until his death. The year of his death has not been firmly established, but different sources mention 1533, 1544 and 1558. He was highly esteemed in his own day and Qadi Ahmad tells us that he "carried off the ball of pre-eminence and superiority, for in laying down the foundations of nasta'liq he was the initiator of new rules and of a praiseworthy canon...." (Minorsky 1959, p.126). Examples of his hand were particularly popular with Mughal patrons and his calligraphic works appear frequently in royal Mughal albums of the seventeenth century.

The pages from this album in Western collections were brought to Paris via Russia in 1909 and were acquired by the dealer Georges Demotte, who sold them piecemeal, often splitting them into separate recto and verso pages (Wright 2008, p.107; Beach 2012, p.113; Martin 1912, p.85). The backboard of the frame that accompanies the present page has a lengthy inscription in old French handwriting discussing the poetry of Farid al-Din Attar and describing the specific couplets on the recto. The style of the handwriting would accord with this page being in French ownership in the first quarter of the twentieth century.