Album folio
Sultan Ali Mashhadi signed his calligraphy in the lower triangular corner. Instead of including the traditional term katabahu, a term that indicates a sense of achievement, he used mashaqahu, which suggests it was a “work in progress,” a practice piece or an instruction exercise that one of his numerous students could study and try to replicate.
Such calligraphic fragments were often mounted onto album pages at a later time. These particular verses were clearly deemed worthy of preservation because they were copied by the most celebrated calligrapher of the late Timurid period (circa 1470–1506). As is almost always the case with album pages, the aesthetic relationship between text and image dominates. The content of the quatrain does not relate to the verses displayed on the borders or to the figures later painted by the illustrious Safavid artists Muhammad Sadiqi and Muhammad Qasim, who were both active around 1600.
Album folio
Signed by Sultan Ali Mashhadi (d. 1520)
Historic Iran, present-day Afghanistan, Herat, or Iran, Mashhad, Safavid period, ca. 1510–15
Paintings ascribed to Muhammad Sadiqi and Muhammad Qasim
Iran, probably Qazvin, Safavid period, ca. 1590
Ink, opaque watercolor, and gold on paper
Purchase—Smithsonian Unrestricted Trust Funds, Smithsonian Collections Acquisition Program, and Dr. Arthur M. Sackler S1986.305
