Calligraphy of Chaghatai Turkish Poems in Praise of Wine (verso)
Medium
Gum tempera, ink, and gold on paper
Dimensions
page: 36.2 × 24.3 cm · inscription only: 19.7 × 11.1 cm
Classification
Painting
Department
Indian and Southeast Asian Art
Museum
Cleveland Museum of Art
Credit
Gift in honor of Madeline Neves Clapp; Gift of Mrs. Henry White Cannon by exchange; Bequest of Louise T. Cooper; Leonard C. Hanna Jr. Fund; From the Catherine and Ralph Benkaim Collection
Accession Number
2013.292.b
Tags
About this artwork
This page of delicately illuminated calligraphy from the pre-Mughal period was mounted into a Mughal album. The poems are written in the native language of the Mughals, a form of Turkish called Chaghatai, using a flowing form of Arabic script called nasta‘liq. The Mughals self-consciously adopted Persian as their official court language, so few Chaghatai books or works of calligraphy were made for them. The quatrain in the center reads: The wine has made an attempt on my life, Since it is the wi...