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Lot Essay
This Qur'an folio, and that of the following lot come from one of the finest kufic Qur'an manuscripts of its type. The elegant kufic calligraphy is characterised by the strong horizontal stretching of the letters (mashq). The confident use of the stretching technique is indicative of "perfect mastery of the pen" (François Déroche, The Abbasid Tradition, London, 1992, p.69).
A section from this Qur'an is in the Iran Bastan Museum, Tehran
(inv.4289), illustrated in Martin Lings, The Qur'anic Art of
Calligraphy and Illumination, Westerham, 1976, no. 5. A single folio sold in Sotheby's Doha, 19 March 2009, lot 303. More recently two
folios sold in these Rooms, 6 October 2011, lots 1 and 2.
For a discussion on the illumination of this Qur'an, see the following lot.
A section from this Qur'an is in the Iran Bastan Museum, Tehran
(inv.4289), illustrated in Martin Lings, The Qur'anic Art of
Calligraphy and Illumination, Westerham, 1976, no. 5. A single folio sold in Sotheby's Doha, 19 March 2009, lot 303. More recently two
folios sold in these Rooms, 6 October 2011, lots 1 and 2.
For a discussion on the illumination of this Qur'an, see the following lot.