Horseriders and young men in Ottoman dress (recto), and Persian calligraphy (verso), folio from an Ottoman album

Horseriders and young men in Ottoman dress (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 or Chinese paintings, 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 marbled card, four paintings with calligraphy (recto) and three calligraphy panels (verso), one of twelve detached folios from an Ottoman album, assembled Istanbul, Turkey, c. 1620. Recto: man in a tall red hat riding a light brown horse, man in a tall red hat on a grey horse, young man in black kaftan and red coat, young man in black with closed coat, four separate paintings, mounted on marbled (ebru) album-page. Verso: three panels of Persian verses in nasta`liq script, three couplets by the poet Mawlana Muhammad ibn Hisam, signed Shah Mahmud Nishapuri, three couplets by