- Title
- Page of Calligraphy
- Date Made
- 18th century
- Period
- Ottoman (1281-1924)
- Medium
- Ink and gold on paper with marbleized border
- Dimensions
- Page: 13 3/4 × 11 3/4 in. (34.93 × 29.85 cm)
Calligraphy: 8 × 6 in. (20.32 × 15.24 cm)
Frame: 23 × 19 × 1 1/2 in. (58.42 × 48.26 × 3.81 cm)
- Accession Number
- AC1995.124.8
- Collecting Area
- Art of the Middle East: Islamic
- Curatorial Notes
In Muslim cultures, words are used not only to communicate but to decorate. Because it is through writing that the Qur’an is transmitted, scripts in the Arabic alphabet were devised and perfected to be worthy of divine revelation. On this account, calligraphy became the most important art form regardless of the text.
Like other artists, Islamic calligraphers honed their skills or worked out new ideas on practice sheets, repeating the same words—or even single letters—until the blank page was almost entirely covered in ink. Never intended to be read, such calligraphic “sketches” were appreciated by connoisseurs in early modern times for their pure visual appeal. In this Ottoman example, mounted on ornamental paper and once preserved in an album, words and phrases written in the thuluth script have been repeated, interlaced, and reversed in orientation, resulting in an attractive weblike composition.
