( fl 1545–66). Ottoman illuminator. The greatest student of SAHKULU, Kara Memi developed a new naturalistic style that quickly spread to other court arts including textiles, rugs, ceramics and tiles and survived for many centuries. He is one of the few artists employed in the imperial Ottoman painting studio under Süleyman I (reg 1520–66) whose name is recorded in archival documents and extant works. First mentioned on a payroll register dated 1545, Kara Memi rose quickly so that by the early 1550s his wages for Koran illumination were the highest given to any artist working on manuscripts commissioned by the Süleymaniye Mosque; by 1557–8 he was head painter (Ott. nakkasbasi). A librarian’s note on the flyleaf of a Koran manuscript transcribed by `ABDALLAH SAYRAFI in 1344–5 and refurbished for the Ottoman grand vizier Rüstem Pasha in the mid-1550s (Istanbul, Topkapi Pal. Lib., E.H. 49) credits Kara Memi with the illumination, and he signed the illumination in a spectacular manuscript of the Divan-i Muhibbi, Süleyman’s collected poems written under the pseudonym Muhibbi (Istanbul, U. Lib., T. 5467), copied in February–March 1566. In these splendid illuminations, Kara Memi combined traditional themes such as split leaves, lotus blossoms and çintimani (three balls over two wavy lines) with scrolls and naturalistic sprays of flowers and trees. Each of the 370 folios in the manuscript bears a different design; the margins are decorated with gold drawings tinted with pastel colours, while the panels separating the verses within the text block display the full artistic vocabulary of the age. This volume must have been the artist’s last work, for his name is missing from the payroll register of July–October of that year.

• Kara Memi
  • Islamic art, §III, 4(vi)(e): Painted book illustration, c 1500–c 1900: Ottoman empire
  • Ottoman, §II: (3) Süleyman