Cleveland Museum of Art

Persian Quatrains (Rubayi) and Calligraphic Exercises (recto); Persian Verse (khamriyya) (verso)

Date

c. 1509–50

Medium

ink, gold, and opaque watercolor on paper

Culture

Afghanistan, Herat, Safavid period (1501–1722)

Department

Islamic Art

Institution

Cleveland Museum of Art

This page contains two quatrains—poems made up of four lines. The diagonally written text in the center of the page is a poem addressed to a ruler, expressing hope for his success and the downfall of his enemies. The second poem is split between the horizontal panels at the top and bottom of the page. This quatrain praises the beauty of the writer’s beloved, saying that “her moonlike face can steal away a hundred besotted hearts.” At the right are calligraphic exercises displaying letters of the alphabet and the virtuoso skill of the calligrapher Sultan Muhammad Khandan, who signed the page in the triangle at the lower left of the inner text block.

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