Eastern Encounters
Drawn from the Royal Library's collection of South Asian books and manuscripts
Calligraphy by Mir 'Imad and portrait of a Mughal lady.
Mughal, <i>c</i>.1730–50 (calligraphy: Iran, <i>c</i>.1600)Fol. 24r from an eighteenth-century Mughal album (see cat. no. 38) | Ink with opaque watercolour including gold metallic paints and leaf on paper; set into composite margins of dyed papers with opaque watercolour and gold metallic ornament and black ink seal impression, edged with gold paper | 42.4 × 28.4 cm (folio); 15.8 × 7.2 cm (panel) | RCIN 1005068.z
Mir Emad was a celebrated calligrapher at the court of Shah Abbas I in Esfahan, whose fame reached as far as the Mughal court. After the calligrapher’s assassination in 1615, supposedly at his ruler’s instigation, the Emperor Jahangir lamented, ‘if Shah Abbas had given him to me I would have paid his weight in pearls!’[157] Some of Mir Emad’s relatives fled to Hindustan, presumably bringing with them many of the calligrapher’s works, eight of which are found in this album.[158] His nephew and pupil Abd al-Rashid Daylami, whose works also appear in this album, was an eminent calligrapher at Shah-Jahan’s court and instructed many members of the royal family in the art.[159]
The verse reads:
Alas, the lovely sweetheart is gone
And tranquillity deserted me, like the life that has been plucked
She has gone out of my sight, and blood too goes out of my heart
What is gone out of my sight goes out of my heart [160]
EH/ASMC
kitba al-faqir al-haqir al-muznib imad al-hasani zenuba ghufran-allah / written by the poor, the miserable, the sinful Emad al-Hasani, may God forgive his sins
[157] Imamuddin 1983, p. 21.
[158] RCIN 1005068, fols 1v, 2r, 4r, 18r, 19v, 24r, 31v, 33v.
[159] RCIN 1005068, fols 5v, 8r, 9v.
[160] Translation by Assadullah Souren Melikian-Chirvani.
