Illuminated Page from the Divan of Sultan Husayn Mirza Bayqara

This beautiful folio comes from a 9th century AH/late 15th-century CE manuscript of poetry by the last Timurid ruler, Sultan Husayn Bayqara (r. 873-911 AH/1469-1506 CE). The volume is an exceptional testimony of the refined culture of the court of Sultan Husayn in Herat during the last decades of the century and of the artistic skills of the master calligraphers working in the Timurid royal workshop (kitabkhana). The folio, dyed in indigo, presents margins richly sprinkled with gold and a masterfully illuminated heading. The central rectangular panel (matn) contains the poetic text, which has been executed in accomplished nasta'liq script in découpage technique (cut-out paper) in cream white paper mounted onto the deep blue colour of the background. The poems on this folio are short odes in rhyming couplets (ghazal) in which the poet Husayni (the pen-name of Sultan Husayn) talks about his unrequited love. They have been composed in Chagatay Turkish, a language which obtained literary dignity thanks to the work of 'Ali Shir Nava'i, prominent Herati poet and politician at the court of Sultan Husayn.