Verso: This richly illuminated folio of calligraphy features the work of the preeminent Timurid calligrapher, Sultan 'Ali Mashhadi. Patronized by the Timurid court, Mashhadi was a poet and a recognized master of the nasta'liq script. In the following poem, composed by Khwaja Salman al-Savuji, he writes:
Coil up in your own tress And then ask how I am, How those are whom the snare Of your affliction broke: You want to know how all Those broken lovers fare– Then ask me first, for I Am the most broken one.
This love poem belongs to a larger tradition of mystical poetry in which the lover longs for the unattainable object of his affections. His lover's tresses ensnare him and, hopelessly caught, the poet mourns his plight.
Due to rights restrictions, this image cannot be enlarged, viewed at full screen, or downloaded.
Open Access
As part of the Met's Open Access policy, you can freely copy, modify and distribute this image, even for commercial purposes.
API
Public domain data for this object can also be accessed using the Met's Open Access API.
Dimensions:H. 15 5/16 in. (38.9 cm) W. 10 1/4 in. (26 cm)
Classification:Codices
Credit Line:Purchase, Rogers Fund and The Kevorkian Foundation Gift, 1955
Accession Number:55.121.10.32
55.121.10.32 verso–Calligraphy
By Khwaja Salman [as-Savaji], may God's mercy be upon him.
Coil up in your own tress and then ask how I am, How those are whom the snare of your affliction broke: You want to know how all those broken lovers fareThen ask me first, for I am the most broken one. Jotted down [mashaqahu] by Sultan-'Ali Mashhadi
The poem contains puns on the twisted curls which arc called "broken" and are compared to snares which capture the hearts of lovers and keep them entangled. The surrounding poetry consists of two incomplete love poems which were also most probably written by Sultan-'Ali, for the one on the left contains a ligature typical of his writing.
Annemarie Schimmel in [Welch et al. 1987]
THIS EXUBERANT and luxuriant treatment of palmettes, leaves, and blossoms on delicately stemmed scrolls in gold on a blue ground is controlled by the finesse and mastery of the drawing. It is very close in brushwork, detail, and overall feeling to the border signed by Daulat (MMA fol. 7V; pl. 27 in this volume) and in all probability is by the hand of that master. These two folios evidently belonged to the same set as MMA fols. 8 and 37 (pls. 29, 30, 67, and 68 in this volume).
Marie L. Swietochowski in [Welch et al. 1987]
55.121.10.32 recto–Prince Danyal
Three years younger than his brother Prince Salim (Jahangir), Prince Danyal was born in 1572, the third son of Akbar. Jahangir writes that, "As his birth took place at Ajmer in the house of one of the attendants of the blessed shrine of the revered Khwaja Mu'inuddin Chishti, whose name was Shaykh Danyal, this child was called Danyal."[1]
After Akbar's conquest of Burhanpur, Prince Danyal was left in charge of that territory, but like his brother Sultan Murad before him, he had already begun to succumb to wine. Several times admonitions were issued by Akbar on the evils of wine and the example of Sultan Murad, who had died at the age of thirty from drinking,[2] but Danyal paid no heed and "however much His Majesty restrained him from such fatal doings he, inasmuch as he had formed the habit, sacrificed himself to wine"[3] in March 1605. Of his brother's death Jahangir writes in his memoirs: "His death occurred in a peculiar way. He was very fond of guns and of hunting with the gun. He named one of his guns Yaka-o- janaza ('the same as the bier') .... When his drinking of wine was carried to excess, and the circumstance was reported to my father, firmans of reproach were sent to the Khankhanan. Of course, he forbade it and placed cautious people to look after him properly. When the road to bring wine was completely closed, he began to weep and to importune some of his servants and said: 'Let them bring me wine in any possible way.' He said to Murshid-Quli Khan, a musketeer who was in his immediate service: 'Pour some wine into this Yaka-o-janaza and bring it to me.' That wretch, in hope of favor, undertook to do this and poured double-distilled spirit into the gun, which had long been nourished on gunpowder and the scent thereof, and brought it. The rust of the iron was dissolved by the strength of the spirit and mingled with it, and the prince no sooner drank of it than he fell down."[4]
Jahangir also says of his brother's character that he was of "exceedingly agreeable manners and appearance." He was fond of elephants, horses, and hunting and also of Hindi songs, in which language he sometimes composed poetry "which wasn't bad."[5]
Wheeler M. Thackston in [Welch et al. 1987]
Like a natural history specimen mounted for inspection, Prince Danyal–whose features suggest a weaker and coarser Jahangir–is isolated against a pale green ground. Stylistically, this portrait is one of the earliest Mughal miniatures in the Kevorkian Album, conforming in its apple-green ground and in the subject's squat but angular physique and costume[6] to those commissioned by Emperor Akbar for a portrait album "so that, those that have passed away have received new life, and those who are still alive have immortality promised them."[7]
These characterizations were the first examples of deliberately soul-searching naturalism in Islamic or Indian portraiture, intended not only to show outer appearances with the utmost verisimilitude but also to lay bare the sitters' natures. Such psychological studies were so helpful to Akbar and Jahangir in the evaluation of rivals that they encouraged artists to delve ever more deeply into the subtleties of human personality, a factor that influenced the development of Mughal painting.
In keeping with Mughal practice, this portrait was probably painted in the studio after a sketch from life. Danyal's age and the style of the painting date it to the mid-1590s, when the sitter was in his twenties and the artist but a few years older. A powerful drawing of Danyal at a later age (Prince of Wales Museum of Western India, Bombay) can also be assigned to Manohar, who seems to have observed him closely. [8]
Stuart Cary Welch in [Welch et al. 1987]
THE SURROUNDING text apparently belongs to the introduction of a treatise on mu'amma (riddles). Toward the end the text was put together in the wrong sequence, and the sentence has to be untangled to make sense.
Annemarie Schimmel in [Welch et al. 1987]
THIS RECTO PORTRAIT has the margin number 52 and belongs to Group A. The border contains flowering plants in gold on a pink ground of the same liveliness and delicate brushstrokes as appear in the more abstract design in blue and gold on the verso, suggesting that the same artist–in all likelihood, Daulat–was responsible for both. There is an iris in the lower right comer with another on the inner side of the left margin, with an ipomoea (morning glory) above it and above that a primula. The inner border shows gold flower and leaf scrolls on a blue ground in a pattern of cartouches with the innermost band of cutout poetry having its own narrow guard bands containing a floral scroll. These very narrow guard bands are unusual. Once the dominant outer border format was established, the artist apparently had a certain amount of choice for the rest. Unfortunately there is no way of knowing if the facing portrait, which would have been numbered 5I, was also of a member of the royal family.
An early nineteenth-century copy of this portrait was auctioned at Sotheby's on October 14, 1980, lot 189 (not illustrated but description follows original).
Marie L. Swietochowski in [Welch et al. 1987]
Footnotes:
1. Jahangir Gurkani, Nur al-Din Muhammad. Jahangirnama: Tuzuk-i Jahangiri. Ed. Muhammad Hashim. Teheran, A.H. 1349/ A.D. 1970, p. 20. See also Abu'l-Fazl. The Akbarnama. Trans. H. Beveridge. 3 vols. Calcutta, 1897–1939. Reprint, Delhi, 1972, II, p. 543.
2. Abu'l-Fazl. Akbarnama (note 1), lII, pp. 1221, 1228.
3· Abu'l-Fazl, Akbarnama (note 1), III, p. 1254.
4· Jahangir, Jahangirnama (note 1), p. 21.
5. Jahangir, Jahangirnama (note 1), p. 21.
6. Danyal wears a transparent cotton four-pointed (chakdar) jama which went out of fashion at the imperial court toward the end of the sixteenth century.
7. Abu'l-Fazl 'Allami. The A'in-i Akbari. Trans. H. Blochmann and Col. H. S. Jarrett. 3 vols. Calcutta, 1873–94, pp. 108–109.
8. Brown, Percy. Indian Painting Under the Mughals. Oxford, 1924, pl. XXI
Signature: verso: Jotted down [mashaqahu] by Sultan-'Ali Mashhadi
Inscription: 55.121.10.32 recto: (Along right border) in Persian (in Jahangir's hand): A portrait of my late brother Danyal — it is quite like him.
(Under portrait) in Persian (in Jahangir's hand): Drawing by Manohar.
Verso: By Khwaja Salman, may God’s mercy be upon him In your curls seek and ask how I am Ask about those broken by the snare of misfortune Ask about all the broken ones Then ask me first, for I am the most broken-hearted one [of them all]. Written by Sultan-‘Ali Mashhadi
-Translated by M. Ekhtiar
Alternative translation: By Khwaja Salman, may God's mercy be upon him. Coil up in your own tress and then ask how I am, How those are whom the snare of your affliction broke You want to know how all those broken lovers fare Then ask me first, for I am the most broken one. Jotted down by Sultan 'Ali al-Mashhadi.
- Translated by Annemarie Schimmel, 1987
Marking: 55.121.10.32 recto: Margin number '52' is inscribed in the gilt margin.
Jack S. Rofe, Scotland (in 1929; sale, Sotheby's London,December 12, 1929, no. 124, to Kevorkian); [ Hagop Kevorkian, New York, from 1929]; [ Kevorkian Foundation, New York, until 1955; gift and sale to MMA]
New York. The Hagop Kevorkian Special Exhibitions Gallery, The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "The Emperor's Album: Images of Mughal India," October 21, 1987–February 14, 1988, nos. 17 and 18.
New York. The Hagop Kevorkian Special Exhibitions Gallery, The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Sultan Ali of Mashhad, Master of Nasta'liq," January 19–May 27, 2001, no catalogue.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Balcony Calligraphy Exhibition," June 1–October 26, 2009, no catalogue.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "The Decorated Word : Writing and Picturing in Islamic Calligrahy," April 8–November 3, 2019.
Sotheby's: Catalogue of Oriental Manuscripts and Miniatures. London: Sotheby's, New York, 1929. no. 124.
Skelton, Robert. "Two Mughal Lion Hunts." Victoria and Albert Yearbook (1969). p. 39, ill. fig. 6 (b/w).
Welch, Stuart Cary, Annemarie Schimmel, Marie Lukens Swietochowski, and Wheeler M. Thackston. The Emperors' Album: Images of Mughal India. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1987. nos. 17, 18, pp. 112–15, ill. verso pl. 17 (b/w); recto pl. 18 (color).
Okada, Amina. Imperial Mughal Painters: Indian Miniatures from the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries. Paris: Flammarion, 1992. p. 144, ill. fig. 166 (b/w), recto.
Ekhtiar, Maryam, and Claire Moore, ed. "A Resource for Educators." In Art of the Islamic World. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2012. pp. 70–71, ill. pl. 10 55.121.10 (55.121.10.32v).
Ekhtiar, Maryam. How to Read Islamic Calligraphy. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2018. no. 12a, pp. 58, 60, ill.
Schrader, Stephanie. Rembrandt and the Inspiration of India. J. Paul Getty Museum, 2018. no. 28, pp. 105, 135, ill. (color).
Attributed to Manohar (active ca. 1582–1624) or Basawan
ca. 1598
Resources for Research
The Met's Libraries and Research Centers provide unparalleled resources for research and welcome an international community of students and scholars.
The Met Collection API is where all makers, creators, researchers, and dreamers can connect to the most up-to-date data and public domain images for The Met collection. Open Access data and public domain images are available for unrestricted commercial and noncommercial use without permission or fee.
Feedback
We continue to research and examine historical and cultural context for objects in The Met collection. If you have comments or questions about this object record, please complete and submit this form. The Museum looks forward to receiving your comments.
The Met's collection of Islamic art is one of the most comprehensive in the world and ranges in date from the seventh to the twenty-first century. Its more than 15,000 objects reflect the great diversity and range of the cultural traditions from Spain to Indonesia.
