A KUFIC QUR'AN FOLIO
NEAR EAST OR NORTH AFRICA, END OF THE 8TH CENTURY
Price Realized (Set Currency) £12,500
($19,963)
Price includes buyer's premium
Estimate£12,000 - £18,000
($19,200 - $28,800)
Sale Information
Sale 7751
art of the islamic and indian worlds
6 October 2009
London, King Street
Lot Description
A KUFIC QUR'AN FOLIO
NEAR EAST OR NORTH AFRICA, END OF THE 8TH CENTURY
Qur'an XLIII, sura al-zukhruf, parts of vv. 19-25, Arabic manuscript on vellum, 16ll. of elegant black kufic with pronounced circular letters, diacritics indicated with black lines, vocalization in red and occasional green dots, verse endings marked with groups of three diagonal lines, folio with one polychrome medallion, slight damage mounted, framed and glazed
Folio 10¾ x 13 1/8in. (27.2 x 33.4cm.)
Special Notice
VAT rate of 5% is payable on hammer price and at 15% on the buyer's premium
Pre-Lot Text
PROPERTY OF A NOBLE COLLECTION
Lot Notes
There has been discussion as to where the Qur'an from which this folio comes originates. It has previously been attributed to 10th century Tunis, (Toby Falk (ed.), Treasures of Islam, Geneva 1985, no. 4, p.37), but François Déroche, has since linked it to material from Damascus. He bases this on the extensive use of mashq - a marked elongation of the script's horizontal progression, allowing the calligrapher to adjust the length of each line to the page as a whole and adding a special character to the script (Kjeld von Folsach, Torben Lundbaek and Peder Mortensen (eds.), Sultan, Shah, and Great Mughal, The National Museum, Copenhagen, 1996, no. 93, p. 141
Whilst the red dots denote the vowels, Déroche points out that the diacritical strokes are a later addition, as many calligraphers were initially against using aids that made the text more legible. On the basis of this, Déroche dates other pages from the same manuscript in the Khalili Collection to the late 8th century (François Déroche,
The Abbasid Tradition, London 1992, no.66, p.120-22).
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