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Lot Essay
The celebrated calligrapher Mustafa Dede was the son of Shaykh Hamdullah (d.1520), the father of Ottoman calligraphy. He was born in Amasya in 1495 and died in 1538, at a young age of 43, at the height of his career. At first, he studied the 'six scripts' under his father, and then later under his relative 'Abdullah Amasi. Mustafa Dede travelled to Mecca for the Hajj, as well as to Cairo to study the works of his father, but spent most of his life in Istanbul.
Works by Dede are extremely rare. Besides from our manuscript, other known copies of the Qur‘an in Dede’s hand include a copy in the Suleymaniye Library (Pertevpasa 1) another in the Topkapi Palace Museum Library (YY 604), two further copies in the Istanbul Rare Books Library, (A.6625 & A.6566) and one recently sold at Sotheby’s, London, 8 October 2014, lot 31. For more information on Dede see Shevket Rado, Turk Hattatlari, Istanbul, 1983, p.65.
The magnificent illumination on the opening bifolio of our Qur‘an is typical of Ottoman work of mid-18th century, and was added to the Quran at that stage. It shows a variation of the traditional layout in which the vertical sections of the border are interrupted by large hasp-shaped motifs. Instead in our example the hasp design is only included in the diagonal margins. A fringe motif in blue and red runs along the edges of the borders, but the main body of the design is executed in a unique combination of pallets in a beautiful range of blues, greens, turquoise, pink and pastel colours heightened in gold. For similar illuminated Qur‘an’s see Manijeh Bayani, Anna Contadini and Tim Stanley, The Decorated Word, Qur'ans of the 17th-19th Centuries, Part 1, London, 1999, pp.100-03, figs. 29-30). The superb quality in which the manuscript has been preserved and the high standard of the illumination indicates the value given to Mustafa Dede’s work by its later owners.
An album of calligraphy by Mustafa Dede is in the Istanbul University Library, no. 6508, two leaves of which are published in Muhittin Serin, Hat Sanati ve Meshur Hattatlar, Istanbul, 2008, p.100 and M.Ugur Derman, Turk Hat Sanatinin Saheserleri, Ankara, 1990, no.4.
Works by Dede are extremely rare. Besides from our manuscript, other known copies of the Qur‘an in Dede’s hand include a copy in the Suleymaniye Library (Pertevpasa 1) another in the Topkapi Palace Museum Library (YY 604), two further copies in the Istanbul Rare Books Library, (A.6625 & A.6566) and one recently sold at Sotheby’s, London, 8 October 2014, lot 31. For more information on Dede see Shevket Rado, Turk Hattatlari, Istanbul, 1983, p.65.
The magnificent illumination on the opening bifolio of our Qur‘an is typical of Ottoman work of mid-18th century, and was added to the Quran at that stage. It shows a variation of the traditional layout in which the vertical sections of the border are interrupted by large hasp-shaped motifs. Instead in our example the hasp design is only included in the diagonal margins. A fringe motif in blue and red runs along the edges of the borders, but the main body of the design is executed in a unique combination of pallets in a beautiful range of blues, greens, turquoise, pink and pastel colours heightened in gold. For similar illuminated Qur‘an’s see Manijeh Bayani, Anna Contadini and Tim Stanley, The Decorated Word, Qur'ans of the 17th-19th Centuries, Part 1, London, 1999, pp.100-03, figs. 29-30). The superb quality in which the manuscript has been preserved and the high standard of the illumination indicates the value given to Mustafa Dede’s work by its later owners.
An album of calligraphy by Mustafa Dede is in the Istanbul University Library, no. 6508, two leaves of which are published in Muhittin Serin, Hat Sanati ve Meshur Hattatlar, Istanbul, 2008, p.100 and M.Ugur Derman, Turk Hat Sanatinin Saheserleri, Ankara, 1990, no.4.