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Lot Essay
Sayyid Isma'il Najib was a student of Ahmed Zarifi, and the teacher of Tentene-zade Sayyid Hassan Vahebi. He is recorded as one of the few Ottoman calligraphers active in Shumen, in north-east Bulgaria between 1820-70s. The surviving examples of Ottoman Qur’ans produced in Shumen reflect the cities role as a leading provincial centre for the production of Qur’ans of much of this period.
The illumination of our Qur’an is typical of the Shumen style which features an opening bifolio in the traditional layout, but filled with a well-modulated combination of modified Ottoman and novel European motifs. The colour pallets used in our copy such as white, pink, pale-blue, purple, orange and green are another feature of Shumen Qur'an’s which were far more prominent than in traditional illuminations, in which gold and blue grounds played a dominant role (Stanley, 2009, pp.248 and 227). Other copies of Qur’ans written by Najib were sold at Christie's, London, 12 October 1978, lot 7 (a copy executed in Shumen in AH 1264/1847-48), 16 June 1987, lot 82, 26 October 2017, lot 229 and at Sotheby’s, London, 21 November 1985, lot 390.
The illumination of our Qur’an is typical of the Shumen style which features an opening bifolio in the traditional layout, but filled with a well-modulated combination of modified Ottoman and novel European motifs. The colour pallets used in our copy such as white, pink, pale-blue, purple, orange and green are another feature of Shumen Qur'an’s which were far more prominent than in traditional illuminations, in which gold and blue grounds played a dominant role (Stanley, 2009, pp.248 and 227). Other copies of Qur’ans written by Najib were sold at Christie's, London, 12 October 1978, lot 7 (a copy executed in Shumen in AH 1264/1847-48), 16 June 1987, lot 82, 26 October 2017, lot 229 and at Sotheby’s, London, 21 November 1985, lot 390.