Album of Calligraphy
Şeyh Hamdullah (d. 1520)
Ottoman Turkey, 16th-18th century
Opaque watercolor and ink on paper mounted on thin pasteboard
bound between sheepskin-covered boards with gold and chamois leather
The Walters Art Museum, Baltimore, bequest of Henry Walters, 1931, acc. no. W.672 (featuring folio 5a)
Şeyh Hamdullah at the Walters Art Museum
by Ashley Dimmig
The Walters Art Museum in Baltimore is home to a beautiful album of calligraphy bound in an accordion format in the 18th century in the Ottoman empire. It contains nine calligraphic works attributed to Şeyh Hamdullah (d. 1520), known as the “father of Ottoman calligraphy.” [1] Indeed, the renowned artist ushered in a new age of calligraphic arts in the Ottoman empire with his revitalization of the so-called six scripts (sulus, nesih, muhakkak, reyhani, tevki’, and riqa’), especially nesih (naskh). The presence of this important calligrapher’s work in Baltimore is made all the more significant given that students who can trace their master-student lineage back through the centuries to Şeyh Hamdullah continue to learn the art of calligraphy through Mohamad Zakariya, also based in the DMV (District-Maryland-Virginia) area. Therefore, the linear chain of transmission (silsila, lit. “chain”) of knowledge comes full circle here in the mid-Atlantic region of the United States.
The album contains nine folios, each with a calligraphy framed in 18th-century decorated papers known as ebru (marbled). The pages include verses from the Qur’an, excerpts from Hadith (sayings of the Prophet Muhammad), and two karalama (lit. “blackening”), or pen exercises. One kıta (small calligraphic work) bears the name of the master calligrapher in its colophon (fol. 5a, seen above). The stylistic consistency throughout the album and the absence of other artists’ names suggests that all of the works are by the same hand—that is, the master-calligrapher Şeyh Hamdullah. In addition to the Walters, Şeyh Hamdullah calligraphies can be found in the collections of two other U.S. institutions: The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and the special collections at the University of Michigan—incidentally, where I earned my PhD last year (2019).
The collection of Rare Books and Manuscripts at the Walters Art Museum contains nearly 200 Islamic manuscripts—including albums and single folios—in addition to the wealth of art objects of various media from the Islamic world in the collection, totaling approximately 1200 objects. This collection of art from Islamic cultures began with the purchase of a single magnificent Qur’an (W.563) by Henry Walters (1848-1931), the founder of the museum who bequeathed his collection to the city of Baltimore in 1931, “for the benefit of the public.” [2]
In the Ottoman tradition of album-making, albums were used as repositories of exemplars from which calligraphers-in-training could model their own work. Yet, albums—like many other kinds of art—can have multiple functions, which may change over the course of their lives, through time and across the world. Thus, in addition to serving as models for learning the art of calligraphy, albums—whether comprised of calligraphies, drawings, paintings, prints, photographs, or some combination thereof—can be thought of as hand-held museums, containing strategically curated two-dimensional works, which then can be admired, compared, displayed, or simply enjoyed in close proximity. Indeed, albums in the Ottoman empire were seen as a source of inspiration, reflection, and renewal. In her analysis of another important Ottoman album, compiled by Kalendar Pasha (d. 1616) for Sultan Ahmed I (r. 1603-1617), Emine Fetvacı says that Kalendar Pasha “presents the images in this album not only as tools for learning and sources of wisdom but also as means to counter troubling times and as sources for rejuvenation.” [3]
Albums can and do continue to bear such power today. In our current moment, as we process events in the world today and as we look to the future with both uncertainty and hope, the ability of art to touch the human spirit and bring us together is as important as ever. While accessible from anywhere in the world through its digital proxy, the album itself remains in trust at the Walters, while nearby the artistic traditions founded in its pages continue to thrive through the hands, hearts, and minds of living artists.
[1] Farhad and Rettig, The Art of the Qur’an, 82.
[2] Excursions through the Collection, 50; https://thewalters.org/about/history/
[3] Fetvacı, “Album of Ahmed I,” 129.
Works Cited & Further Reading
Akın-Kıvanç, Esra. Mustafa ‘Ali’s Epic Deeds of Artists: A Critical Edition of the Earliest Ottoman Text about the Calligraphers and Painters of the Islamic World. Leiden: Brill, 2011.
Avcıoğlu, Nebahat. “Introduction: The Culture of Albums in the Long 18th Century,” Journal18, Issue 6 Albums (Fall 2018): http://www.journal18.org/3224. DOI: 10.30610/6.2018.1.
Farhad, Massumeh and Simon Rettig. The Art of the Qur’an: Treasures from the Museum of Turkish and Islamic Art. Washington, DC: Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, 2016.
Fetvacı, Emine. “The Album of Ahmed I,” Ars Orientalis 42 (2012): 127-138.
Simpson, Marianna Shreve. “‘A Gallant Era’: Henry Walters, Islamic Art, and the Kelekian Connection,” Ars Orientalis 30: Exhibiting the Middle East: Collections and Perceptions of Islamic Art (2000): 91-112.
Walters Art Museum. The Walters Art Museum: Excursions through the Collection. Baltimore, MD: The Walters Art Museum, 2020.
Album of Calligraphy
Şeyh Hamdullah (d. 1520)
Ottoman Turkey, 16th-18th century
Opaque watercolor and ink on paper mounted on thin pasteboard
bound between sheepskin-covered boards with gold and chamois leather
The Walters Art Museum, bequest of Henry Walters, 1931, acc. no. W.672 (featuring folio 3b)
An Introduction to Sheyh Hamdullah
by Mohamed Zakariya
At the Reed Society, we hope to build an accessible literature about arts and concepts that remain somewhat hidden, in difficult languages and cultural zones. One such art is Arabic-script calligraphy, and a good place to start is with Sheyh Hamdullah, an Ottoman artist, athlete, and gentleman from the 15th-16th centuries. For calligraphers like myself, he is a constant inspiration. Those who take calligraphic training and are honored with the icazet, an unofficial license, partake of the many gifts this man left to posterity. When I go to Istanbul, I always visit his grave in the Karaca Ahmet Cemetery, as do most calligraphers.
Sheyh Hamdullah was born around 1436 in the town of Amasya in Ottoman Anatolia, a place famous for its many calligraphers. His father was a sheyh (or sheikh) of the Suhraverdi order, and Hamdullah often called himself “son of the sheyh.” The grand master of the archery lodge, Hamdullah was also a sheyh of the Sufi path. His teachers in calligraphy were trained in the style of writing perfected by Yakut el-Mustasimi of Baghdad, and Hamdullah excelled in these methods and the literature associated with them.
When Prince Beyazid, son of Mehmed the Conquerer, became governor of Amasya, he took calligraphy lessons from Sheyh Hamdullah and received his icazet from him. The two became life-long friends. Beyazid became Sultan Beyazid II in 1481 and, the following year, invited Sheyh Hamdullah to join him in Constantinople (now Istanbul). The sheyh was given a workshop in the Topkapi Palace, where he would write and teach and where the sultan could visit and watch him work. While there, the sheyh designed a good deal of monumental calligraphy around Constantinople, especially in the Beyazid Mosque and precinct, and in other cities.
By this time, however, calligraphy had become rather stodgy and rigid, and the sheyh was inspired to undertake a basic overhaul of the art, top to bottom, using the best examples of Yakut’s original works. He was shortly able to transform the six proportional scripts (sulus, nesih, muhakkak, reyhani, tevki’, and riqa’) into a new and vivacious medium. Using these scripts, he wrote 47 mushafs (Korans) and numerous other works, inscriptions, and murakkaas (albums), at least three of which are in collections in the United States. The sheyh’s sulus (thuluth) script, while magnificent, was still a bit stiff. It was his nesih (naskh), enlivened with vitality, that really took off, becoming the most important script in the Ottoman repertoire.
In addition to calligraphy, the multi-talented Sheyh Hamdullah was a champion archer, swimmer, tailor, and falconer. He was a brilliant maker of arrows and composite bows and taught archery to the best masters of the day. The sheyh lived into his late 80s and died in 1520.
When we look at his work and at other Ottoman calligraphy, we need to be aware that these are normally joint productions, involving many people. The calligraphy is the basis of the piece. But it is the assembly, polishing, gilding, mounting, painting, and sometimes binding or monumental carving and architectural application that finish the work and make an art object.
The known and unknown geniuses of calligraphy who followed the great founding master of Baghdad, Ibnul-Bawwab, paved the road of calligraphy so it could, in the hands of Sheyh Hamdullah, begin to become a true art. The teaching method he developed is the origin of the method we use today. His students went on to teach others, over the generations creating something of a family tree of calligraphic genealogy, a key to study the evolution of the art.