Portrait of a nobleman in purple jama and orange turban (recto), Persian calligraphy by Mir `Ali (verso), from the Late Shah Jahan Album

Portrait of a nobleman in purple jama and orange turban (recto), Persian calligraphy by Mir `Ali (verso), folio from the Late Shah Jahan Album. This folio comes from an imperial Mughal Indian album, produced for Shah Jahan towards the end of his reign (c. 1650-1658), and referred to as the “Late Shah Jahan Album”. Now dismantled, the album’s grand format folios are today dispersed in public and private collections worldwide, with twenty folios in the Chester Beatty. The album layout was planned with matching artworks facing each other: calligraphy opposite calligraphy, paintings opposite paintings. These artworks are rarely contemporary with the album project: they have been assembled, and are presented together as a carefully curated collection. As with other Mughal albums, the borders are a very significant part of the Late Shah Jahan Album’s presentation, with a consistent visual theme continuing throughout the folios. In this album, colourful border paintings may amplify the central image, or embed it within a contemporary Mughal design. Folio, ink, colours and gold on paper, mounted on album page with painted borders, profile portrait of an unidentified nobleman with greying beard, purple jama, yellow shalvar and orange turban, against turquoise backdrop, unsigned, with border paintings of seven other courtiers (recto), Persian calligraphy in nasta`liq script signed by Mir `Ali Haravi ("al-faqir al-mudhanib Mir `Ali"), with border paintings of birds in grapevines, from the Late Shah Jahan Album, recto calligraphy possibly Bukhara, Uzbekistan, c. 1500-1545, painting and album page, Agra, India, c. 1650-1658.