OTTOMAN TURKEY, FIRST HALF 16TH CENTURY

So high is the quality of both illumination and binding of this Qur'an that it seems likely to have been prepared in the Ottoman imperial nakkashane. The illumination is typical of that produced in the period of Sultan Süleyman the Magnificent (1520-1566), and shares an aesthetic with a contemporaneous examples executed by the naqqashbashi Kara Memi, the artist most commonly associated with this new style of illumination. An example of his work, a Qur'an bifolio illuminated by him in 1554-55 is in the Topkapi Sarayi Müzesi (E.H.49, Esin Atil, The Age of Sultan Süleyman the Magnificent, New York, 1987, p.55, no.14). It was Kara Memi's innovative style that introduced a new naturalistic concept into the decorative repertoire of the court studio in the first half of the 16th century, using finely drawn roses, tulips, carnations and hyacinths, each with its own mystical or symbolic significance and probably inspired by the colourful palace gardens. The new concept of centralised designs being established in the nakkashane, creating an indigenous decorative vocabulary with motifs reproduced on a variety of media, is evident in the homogeny between the binding and illumination of this Qur'an. There is a pleasing coherence in the design of gold stamped medallions of the binding and the illumination panels that border each of the first two text panels of the Qur'an, with each centered around a central cinched lozenge. Stamped in varying degrees of relief, and decorated with occasional dots of blue pigment, the binding of this manuscript is exceptionally fine. A gold stamped binding, circa 1520, with a similarly applied spots of pigment, albeit off-white as opposed to blue, is in the Topkapi Saray Müzesi (A.21, Esin Atil, op.cit., p.56, no.15).