SIGNED BY HAMID AYTAÇ, TURKEY, DATED AH 1379/1959-60 AD

Hamid Aytaç (1891-1982), also known as Hamid al-Amidi, is one of Turkey’s most celebrated modern calligraphers. Born in Diyarbakir, he was the pupil of several well-known masters of calligraphy including Haci Hazif Bey (for jali), Kamil Akdik (for thuluth and naskh), Hulusi Efendi (for ta’liq) and Isma’il Hakki Altünbezer (for tughra’i). He was a teacher of calligraphy from 1910 to 1912 and then a cartographer at the Military College until 1918. After that time he devoted himself full-time to his art. He wrote the inscriptions in the Sisli Mosque in Istanbul (Calligraphie islamique: Textes sacrés et profanes, exhibition catalogue, Geneva, 1988, p.160). A hilyeh by him is in the Sakip Sabanci Collection, Istanbul (inv.395; M. Ugur Derman, Letters in Gold. Ottoman Calligraphy from the Sakpi Sabanci Collection, Istanbul, exhibition catalogue, New York, 1998, p.35, fig.19).