Calligraphy framed by an ornamental border with poppies and pairs of birds, from the Late Shah Jahan Album (verso)
1653
unspecified
From the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art
1653
unspecified
From the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art
You see black Persian script floating inside a gold frame, surrounded by red poppies and tiny birds in pairs. The words are actually poetry—lines from a 13th-century ode about greed. The Mughal court loved calligraphy so much they framed it like a jewel, even above paintings of people. No one signed it, so the artist’s name is lost. To see more work like this, look up mughal india, court of shah jahan (reigned 1628–58).
