SAFAVID IRAN, 16TH CENTURY

Details

QUR'AN
SAFAVID IRAN, 16TH CENTURY
Arabic manuscript on burnished cream paper, 339ff. with six flyleaves, with 15ll. of black naskh, text within red, blue and gold rules, gold, red and blue roundel verse markers, Qajar sura headings in gold thuluth on blue ground, marginal hizb, sajda, nisf juz' and juz' markers in Qajar cartouches, catchwords, double shamsa inscribed with the names of the ten readers (qari'un) and their transmitters, illuminated double frontispiece with sura al-fatiha and the beginning of sura al-baqara, followed by a bifolio with black naskh on a gold ground with an illuminated border, later ownership inscriptions and seal impression on first and final folio, the earliest dated AH 1295/1878 AD, in brown morocco with Qajar lacquer central medallion and spandrels, light brown morocco doublures, in modern fabric bag
Text panel 8 ¼ x 2 5/8in. (13.9 x 6.7cm.); folio 9 x 5 ¼in. (23 x 14.2cm.)

Provenance

Private collection, UK, since the 1970s, thence by descent

Conditions of sale

Brought to you by

Sara Plumbly Director, Head of Department

splumbly@christies.com +44 (0)20 7389 2374

Lot Essay

The illumination on the first bifolio is reminiscent of a Qur'an attributed to Herat or Tabriz, circa 1525-50, in the Khalili Collection (acc. no. QUR251; David James, After Timur: Qur'ans of the 15th and 16th Centuries, Oxford, 1992, pp. 128-35). A rare and interesting feature of our Qur'an is its two shamsas, which introduce the ten recognised readers (qari'un) of the Qur'an and their transmitters, and the markings of variant readings (qira'at) throughout the text.

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