'Unwan from the Shah Jahan Album
Calligrapher Mir 'Ali Haravi
Not on view
A manuscript often opened with an 'unwan, a sumptuous double-page composition framing columns of text. To begin this imperial album, text from a treatise on calligraphy by Mir 'Ali, the celebrated penman of the early sixteenth-century Timurid court of Herat, was pasted onto a folio and decorated with several borders of lavish illumination. The writing itself is surrounded with cloudlike bubbles, around which miniature irises, lilies, and other plants bloom.
This image cannot be enlarged, viewed at full screen, or downloaded.
This artwork is meant to be viewed from right to left. Scroll left to view more.