recto: "Portrait of Prince Danyal", Folio from the Shah Jahan Album

Painting by Manohar

Calligrapher Sultan 'Ali al-Mashhadi Iranian

recto: late 16th century; verso: ca. 1500

Not on view

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.