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Lot Essay
The large marginal medallion on this folio is a tenth verse marker, giving a textual reference for the end of the section. The other marginal medallion is a fifth verse marker, also giving a textual reference.
This bifolio and that of the following lot are remarkable for the wide spectrum of colours used in the illumination, rare in a kufic Qur'an folio. Although the style of the calligraphy is very different, another Qur'an that employs this technique of colourful text-heavy marginal medallions sometimes surrounded in colourful dots is said to be the first copy known to be produced in Palermo in Muslim Sicily (François Déroche, The Abbasid Tradition, The Nasser D. Khalili Collection of Islamic Art, London, 1992, no.81, pp.146-51).
This bifolio and that of the following lot are remarkable for the wide spectrum of colours used in the illumination, rare in a kufic Qur'an folio. Although the style of the calligraphy is very different, another Qur'an that employs this technique of colourful text-heavy marginal medallions sometimes surrounded in colourful dots is said to be the first copy known to be produced in Palermo in Muslim Sicily (François Déroche, The Abbasid Tradition, The Nasser D. Khalili Collection of Islamic Art, London, 1992, no.81, pp.146-51).