NEAR EAST OR NORTH AFRICA, 9TH/10TH CENTURY

This Qur'an folio and the following two folios in lots 2 and 3 come from one of the finest kufic Qur'an manuscripts of their type. The sura heading of the present folio is very finely worked with a palmette extending into the margin. Droche writes that palmettes such as that seen here, which were at the edge of the page, marked the presence of the rest of the illumination within the text area, thus emphasizing the information that the main illumination carried (Franois Droche, The Abbasid Tradition, London, 1992, p. 23). The overlapping lappets which can be seen framing the sura heading are also present on a Qur'an manuscript in the Islamic Arts Museum, Tehran (inv.4279) (A Selection of Koran Manuscripts in the Museum of the Islamic Period, Tehran, sh.1375/1997 AD, p.31). This folio also has black ink which outlines many of the gold palmettes in the sura heading, contrasting and heightening the illumination. For a list of further folios from the same Qur'an, please see the following lot.