This pen rest or ‘maqta’ is made from carved ivory. An Islamic calligrapher would use a pen rest to hold the pen steady while cutting the nib. The reed pen or the ‘qalam’, which is hollow, needs to be cut and its nib trimmed with a knife before it can be used. The pen rest is thus an integral tool in a calligrapher’s writing kit. While some pen rests may have beautiful motifs in gold, others like this one, is more modest in their decoration.
