Page of Shikasta Nasta'liq Calligraphy with Floral Margins

Abdul Majid Talaqani · Zand dynasty (1750–1794), 1767

Medium

Ink, gold, and watercolor on paper

Original size

30.5 × 20.4 cm (12 × 8 in.)

Currently held

Art Institute of Chicago

Movement

Rococo

This 1767 page from the Zand court tradition is as much a work of visual art as it is a feat of lettered precision, its cursive script flowing across the surface like a river traced in gold and ink. Abdul Majid Talaqani worked in Shikasta Nasta'liq, a highly compressed and fluid variant of the already refined Nasta'liq script — considered by Persian connoisseurs the most elegant of all calligraphic styles. Shikasta, meaning "broken," pushes letterforms to their expressive limit, with strokes overlapping and abbreviating in ways that take years to master and still longer to read fluently. The floral margins surrounding the text panel — rendered in watercolor with gold detailing — reflect the full illumination tradition of the period, where border and script together formed one unified composition rather than text dressed with decoration. Nasta'liq was historically the script of choice for Persian poetry, and pages of this quality were prized as collector's objects in their own right, passed between patrons and connoisseurs across the Islamic world. The hand-painted oil reproduction brings this intimate, layered work onto canvas with careful attention to the interplay between gilded calligraphy and botanical ornament, giving the original's quiet opulence a new and enduring physical presence.