Folio from a volume of poetry by Jami (d. 1492)

Written on cream-colored paper and set within gold sprinkled margins, the verses on this folio are by the poet Jami (d. 1492), the leading literary figure at the court of the Timurid ruler, Sultan Husayn Bayqara, in Herat. Jami's mystically inspired poetry enjoyed tremendous popularity during the sixteenth century, and his Haft awrang (Seven Thrones) became one of the most frequently illustrated texts. While Jami's select poems, written in the elegant nasta'liq script, were frequently included in albums (muraqqa'), the present folio probably belonged to an entire volume devoted to his poetry.

The verses are copied in different colored inks -- white, gold, and blue -- a practice that can also be seen in the work of renowned sixteenth-century calligraphers, such as Ayshi, Rustam Ali, Shah Mahmud Nishapuri, who contributed to the most celebrated copy of Jami's Haft awrang, completed between 1556-65 for Sultan Ibrahim Mirza and now in the Freer Gallery of Art. Another notable feature of the present folio is the shifting directionality of the script. Favored by many Safavid scribes, this device helped to enhance the visual appeal of their work and served as a distinctive characteristic of sixteenth-century Persian calligraphy.