NEAR EAST OR NORTH AFRICA, 10TH CENTURY

Other leaves from this elegant three-line Qur'an are in the al-Sabah collection (M. Jenkins ed., Islamic Art in the Kuwait National Museum, Lond on 1983, p.19) and in the Nasser D. Khalili collection (François Déroche, The Abbasid Tradition, London, 1992, p.111). Déroche notes that the manuscript from which the folio comes is among the very few early Qur'ans written with three lines to the page, and that these were evidently sought after and very expensive since considerably more parchment and time was needed for their manufacture (Déroche, op. cit., p.109). Further folios and sections from this manuscript have sold in these Rooms, for example 17 April 2007, lot 10, 15 October 2002, lot 7 and 13 October 1998, lot 8 and 9.