AN OTTOMAN CALLIGRAPHIC ALBUM (MURAQQA) SIGNED BY MEHMED ABDULAZIZ KNOWN AS HATTAT AZIZ EFENDI, TURKEY, DATED 1332 AH/1913 AD

Hadith, Quran verses and Poems. Arabic and Turkish manuscript on paper, 15 leaves, each folio with two lines of strong black thuluth on cream paper surrounding panels of 2 smaller lines of elegant black naskh between panels with gold speckling or now faded illumination, with gold roundel verse markers outlined in black and pointed in polychrome dots, text panels between two gold borders on gold-speckled green margins, final folio dated and signed Muhammad( Mehmet) Abdul Aziz and dated1332 AH/1913 AD.
In brown leather morocco binding decorated with gilt floral sprigs.
Text panel: 12.5 by 23 cm.
Folio:19 by 29 cm.

CATALOGUE NOTE
Mehmed Abdulaziz Efendi, born in Mecca in 1871, his family moved to Istanbul. Aziz Efendi completed his primary education in 1885 and started to learn calligraphy from Ahmed Arif Effendi of Plovdiv (known more commonly as 'Bakkal' -the grocer-) and he also studied at Hat Mektebi (Calligraphy school). He graduated in 1894 and continued to practise under the supervision of Muhsinzade Abdullah Hamdi Efendi until 1896. In 1921, King Fuad of Egypt invited him to Cairo, where he transcribed the Quran and gilded the result. After completing his mission, he remained in Egypt, where he worked as a teacher and contributed to the establishment of schools to improve Arabic fonts. He returned to Istanbul in 1932, where he died two years later. Two of his calligraphic panels are hanging in the Grand Mosque of Bursa, Turkey. He transcribed 11 copies of the Quran in his lifetime, a number of hilyas and other textual compilations.