Folio from the Gulshan Album

Folio from the Gulshan Album, compiled for Mughal emperor Jahangir (1569-1627).
This is a single page from a renowned album (or muraqqa`) prepared for the Mughal emperor Jahangir, and completed under his son Shah Jahan. Each page offers a selection of images on one side, and Persian calligraphy specimens on the other, all gathered together to show a diverse art collection. Throughout the album, the Mughal Indian borders follow a consistent presentation, binding the full sequence together: the group of images sit in borders decorated with gold foliage and brightly-coloured birds, while the calligraphy pages are mounted in border with a golden landscape full of painted people and animals. Here, three tinted drawings from Iran are placed together with a Nuremberg engraving and a line of Persian calligraphy quoting the poet Sa`di. The tinted drawing of a seated figure is signed by Reza `Abbasi (d. 1635), of Isfahan. On the verso, illuminated panels of Persian verses quote the poet Imad al-Faqih (d. 1371): the surrounding Mughal border shows one prince resting during a hunt with his hawk, dog and horse, while an attendant cooks fowl over a fire, and another prince listening to a scholar holding a book.
Most of the Gulshan Album is in the Gulistan Palace Library in Tehran (90 folios), and the Staatsbibliothek in Berlin (25 folios). Many more single folios are also dispersed in international collections in Europe and America.
Folio, ink, colours and gold on paper, different works mounted together on card, three tinted drawings from Iran, a German print and Persian nasta`liq calligraphy panel grouped on recto, and Persian nasta`liq calligraphy panels with illumination on verso, assembled and mounted on newly-decorated borders in Mughal India, folio from the Gulshan Album compiled for emperor Jahangir, India, c. 1600-1618.