Papercut Gardens
Paper cut reliefs of gardens, using the kaat’i technique, enjoyed immense popularity throughout the sixteenth century at the Ottoman court, and was adopted by artisans during the seventeenth and eighteenth century, especially. Artisans decorated stenciled, and paper cut designs into bookbindings and murakka albums. Using decoupage technique, they created gardens and landscapes of cut out flowers from paper. This craft was practiced by artisans such as Efsanci Mehmed and Efsanci Ahmed. The rare eighteenth-century Ottoman paper-cut landscape depicts a view of Topkapi Palace from the Bosphorus. Pictured, is the sumptuous gardens of the palace, overlooking the waters of the Bosphorus. This image draws on the paper-cut tradition of other such illustrated albums of calligraphy in the Istanbul University Library, including works by Shah Mahmud Nishapuri, who created paradise gardens out of paper. This unique, complex, and delicately cut work of paper, signed by Dervish Hasan Eyyubi, is a special way of portraying the acclaimed palatial gardens of Topkapi Palace.
Information sources: https://www.cornucopia.net/magazine/articles/cutting-edge/