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Ahmed Naksi
( fl 1619–22). Ottoman painter and astrologer. Employed as the official timekeeper at the Süleymaniye Mosque in Istanbul, he was also the foremost illustrator of historical manuscripts under Sultan Osman II (reg 1618–22). His earliest known work is the series of 49 illustrations he provided for a copy of the Shaqa’iq al-nu `maniyya, a biographical dictionary of Ottoman scholars by Tasköprülüzade Ahmed Efendi (Istanbul, Topkapi Pal. Lib., H. 1263). The manuscript was commissioned in 1619 by the grand vizier Öküz Mehmed Pasha as a gift for the Sultan, and the last scene shows the Grand Vizier presenting the book to the Sultan in the presence of the artist. The illustrations in the divan (collected poems) of the court epic-writer Nadiri (Istanbul, Topkapi Pal. Lib., H. 899), made in c. 1620, can be attributed to Ahmed Naksi on stylistic grounds, as can those in the same author’s Sâhnâme, an account of Osman II’s campaign against Poland in 1621 (Istanbul, Topkapi Pal. Lib., H. 1124), and at least three copies of the Turkish translation of the Persian epic, the Shahnama (‘Book of Kings’) of Firdawsi, two dated 1620 (Uppsala, U. Lib., MS. Celsing I, and New York, Pub. Lib., Spencer col. Turkish MS. 1) and one dated c. 1622 (Paris, BN, MS. suppl. turc 326). Other paintings were incorporated into albums.
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