Young man and woman (recto), and Persian calligraphy (verso), folio from an Ottoman album

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Young man and woman (recto), and Persian calligraphy (verso), folio from an Ottoman album. Across Iran, India and Turkey, from the sixteenth century at least, albums (or muraqqa`) had become an important way of storing and presenting one's diverse collection of artworks on paper: valuable specimens of calligraphy, single-page paintings or drawings, and even European prints, all re-mounted in a careful sequence. This album was compiled in early seventeenth-century Ottoman Istanbul, probably for a private citizen. Album-page, ink, colours and gold on paper, mounted on gold-flecked card, paintings and calligraphy in Arabic and Persian, one of twelve detached folios from an Ottoman-era album, assembled Istanbul, Turkey, c. 1620. Recto: Young man standing in a landscape, young woman standing in a landscape, three lines of Arabic poetry (continued on verso), all mounted on marbled (ebru) paper, set on larger gold-flecked album-page. Verso: Diagonal lines of Persian poetry by Amir Khusrau Dihlavi in nasta`liq script, signed Malik al-Daylami, framed by lines of Arabic poetry, all mounted onto marbled (ebru) paper.