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Lot Essay
The great value which was placed on the art of calligraphy in the Ottoman empire encouraged the development of ever more specialised tools for scribes. The divit first emerges in the 16th century, a handy way for the bureaucrats of the burgeoning Empire to keep pen and ink handy as they travelled. Like our own example, many bear the names of their makers.
Narrow scissors such as those in this group would have been used to prepare sheets of paper before writing. Ottoman scissors are distinguished by the curved interiors of the blades, as well as the use of gold overlay. Around the 19th century, they began to be made with the handles forming invocation ya fattah. Mary McWilliams and David Roxburgh suggest that using the scissors would thus act as an act of dhikr, or remembrance (Traces of the Calligrapher, Houston, 2007, p.29). As well as an example of this type, our group includes a pair of scissors with hinged pieces for the fingers. Though McWilliams and Roxburgh suggest that this was to accommodate the different sized fingers of different users, this may also have been to allow the scissors to fit into a small pencase.
An appeal to divine support would be especially appropriate were the user about to embark on a découpage composition. Though this art form has its origins in Timurid Herat, in the late Ottoman empire cut-out compositions were extremely fashionable. Celebrated masters of the period included Rifqi, of whose work there are three specimens in the Khalili Collection (J.M. Rogers, Empire of the Sultans, Geneva, 1995, nos.191-3, p.267).
To the best of our knowledge there is only one other steel divit known which was sold in these Rooms, 13 October 1998, lot 206. That example was dated 1876 AD.
Narrow scissors such as those in this group would have been used to prepare sheets of paper before writing. Ottoman scissors are distinguished by the curved interiors of the blades, as well as the use of gold overlay. Around the 19th century, they began to be made with the handles forming invocation ya fattah. Mary McWilliams and David Roxburgh suggest that using the scissors would thus act as an act of dhikr, or remembrance (Traces of the Calligrapher, Houston, 2007, p.29). As well as an example of this type, our group includes a pair of scissors with hinged pieces for the fingers. Though McWilliams and Roxburgh suggest that this was to accommodate the different sized fingers of different users, this may also have been to allow the scissors to fit into a small pencase.
An appeal to divine support would be especially appropriate were the user about to embark on a découpage composition. Though this art form has its origins in Timurid Herat, in the late Ottoman empire cut-out compositions were extremely fashionable. Celebrated masters of the period included Rifqi, of whose work there are three specimens in the Khalili Collection (J.M. Rogers, Empire of the Sultans, Geneva, 1995, nos.191-3, p.267).
To the best of our knowledge there is only one other steel divit known which was sold in these Rooms, 13 October 1998, lot 206. That example was dated 1876 AD.