FAKHRI OF BURSA [CALLIGRAPHER].

Rare panel of Ottoman découpage calligraphy.

by the eminent master calligrapher Fahri of Bursa.

Stock Code

104905

Ottoman Turkey, 1600

£12,500

'The greatest of the paper-cutters of the late Ottoman times was Fakhri of Bursa (d. 1617), the only paper-cutter mentioned by the Ottoman chronicler Mustafa 'Ali in his history of calligraphers and artists written in 1580 and one whose work was deemed worthy of royal albums' (Sheila S. Blair, Islamic Calligraphy, Edinburgh, 2007, p. 56). As well as excelling in découpé calligraphy, Fakhri was also renowned for his floral compositions and garden scenes, also evident in the present example, that are generally considered unparalleled by découpage artists from the Ottoman and wider empires thereafter. The most notable example of his work is the his composition of the Gulestan (also by Sa'adi Shirazi), forming part of the the 'Album of Murad III' that was gifted to Sultan Ahmed I (r. 1603-1617) which is held in the Austrian National Library (their Cod. Mixt. 313), and further examples in the calligraphic album of

Description

Single panel, formed of two rhyming couplets of découpage calligraphy, in Farsi, panel 172 by 95 mm (full sheet 235 by 158 mm); single column, 4 lines fine découpage nasta'liq calligraphy cut from cream paper, laid onto a brown card with later gilt additions forming clouds around the text, upper right-hand corner with contemporary découpé floral decorations, signed by the calligrapher (also in découpage) in lower left-hand corner, some light ribbing and faint staining; mounted to thick card with later painted borders, likely assembled thus in the second half of the eighteenth century.