Square Kufic in other mediums
Square Kufic in other mediums
The Topkapi architectural scroll
The Topkapi architectural design scroll is probably the best-preserved and oldest scroll of this kind to have survived. It is of great importance for an understanding of Timurid and Turkmen geometric design principles. The scroll is 29.5 meters long, with 114 drawings, it bears no date and is not signed. The drawings represent geometrical designs, murqanas designs and contain patterns and elements of square kufic. It entered the Ottoman imperial treasury at an unknown date and is now housed at the Topkapi Place Museum in Istanbul, Turkey.
Victoria and Albert architectural scroll
A collection of architectural design scrolls were bought by C. Purdon Clarke from Tehran in 1876 for the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, after the death of the state architect Mirza Akbar. Two of the scrolls are preserved in their original state, and those more fragile where cut and pasted on 53 large cardboards in random order. Although not as old as the Topkapi scroll, these scrolls show a continuation of the tradition of drafting architectural design scrolls that survived, especially in Iran, to the modern era.
The Fletcher prayer rug is a 16 th century prayer rug of Persian origin, now housed at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, USA. This Safavid rug is made with silk pile on a cotton foundation, symmetrical knot, with silver brocading. Size 1.6 x 1.83 m.
An Ottoman prayer rug from the 19 th century. Size 1.07 x 1.62 m.
Manuscripts and miniatures.