Calligraphy of Chaghatai Turkish Poems in Praise of Wine (verso) (c. 1500–1520): Art, History and Details

Calligraphy of Chaghatai Turkish Poems in Praise of Wine (verso) (c. 1500–1520) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Mirza Muhammad (probably Persian, active c. 1520s); Sultan Muhammad Nur (Persian, c. 1472–1536).

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

This page of delicately illuminated calligraphy from the pre-Mughal period was mounted into a Mughal album. The poems are written in the native language of the Mughals, a form of Turkish called Chaghatai, using a flowing form of Arabic script called nasta‘liq. The Mughals self-consciously adopted Persian as their official court language, so few Chaghatai books or works of calligraphy were made for them. The quatrain in the center reads: The wine has made an attempt on my life, Since it is the wine that can wear down the pain of separation. O Sufi! Let the mosque be for you, and the tavern for me, Since you need to arrive at the Spring of Kowsar, while I am in need of wine! The Spring of Kowsar is where the righteous quench their thirst in the afterlife.

Object facts

• Title: Calligraphy of Chaghatai Turkish Poems in Praise of Wine (verso)
• Date: c. 1500–1520
• Creator attribution: Mirza Muhammad (probably Persian, active c. 1520s); Sultan Muhammad Nur (Persian, c. 1472–1536)
• Culture: Mughal India, court of Akbar (reigned 1556–1605)
• Type: Painting
• Technique: Gum tempera, ink, and gold on paper
• Dimensions: Page: 36.2 x 24.3 cm (14 1/4 x 9 9/16 in.)
• Collection: Indian Art - Mughal
• Department: Indian and Southeast Asian Art
• Accession number: 2013.292.b

Collection credit

Gift in honor of Madeline Neves Clapp; Gift of Mrs. Henry White Cannon by exchange; Bequest of Louise T. Cooper; Leonard C. Hanna Jr. Fund; From the Catherine and Ralph Benkaim Collection

Further reading listed by the museum

• Wilson, Arnold Talbot. Catalogue of the International Exhibition of Persian Art; Partrons: His Majesty the King, His Majesty Rizā Shāh Pahlavi. 7th January to 28th February, 1931, Royal Academy of Arts, London. London: Office of the Exhibition [Printed by Gee & Co.], 1931.
• Mace, Sonya Rhie, Mohsen Ashtiany, Catherine Glynn, Pedro Moura Carvalho, Marcus Fraser, and Ruby Lal. Mughal Paintings: Art and Stories: the Cleveland Museum of Art. London: D Giles Limited, 2016.

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.