AN IMPRESSIVE KASHMIRI QUR'AN

KASHMIR, 19TH CENTURY

Details

AN IMPRESSIVE KASHMIRI QUR'AN
KASHMIR, 19TH CENTURY
Arabic manuscript on cream paper, 398ff. as numbered plus 4 fly-leaves, each folio with 14ll. of white-outlined gold naskh on cobalt-blue cartouches with gold floral scrolls, framed with further polychrome floral illumination on gold ground, the text panels laid down within gold borders issuing cusped cartouches into the margins, interlinear Persian translation in red nasta'liq, gold and polychrome rosette verse markers, sura headings in red naskh on gold cartouches, suras also marked in red in the upper outer margins, khams, 'ashr and juz' marked in similar red naskh in the margins, opening and closing bifolios with elaborate shamsas framing prayers in blue and red naskh, second, penultimate and middle bifolio with dense illumination surrounding 7ll. of text, folios slightly trimmed, bound in two volumes in later brown morocco with flaps and stamped central medallions and spandrels, red morocco doublures with further stamped medallions
Text panel 9 x 5in. (23.1 x 12.9cm.); folio 11½ x 6 7/8in. (29.2 x 17.6cm.)

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Lot Essay

This Qur'an is one of the finest examples of Kashmiri illumination. Every page in this two volume Qur'an is fully illuminated. Another Kashmiri Qur'an dated to the late 19th in the collection of Ghassan I. Shaker has gold and cobalt-blue floral illumination on its opening bifolio of a similar standard to that of our Qur'an, (see Nabil F. Safwat, Golden Pages, Oxford, 2000, no.38, pp.166-167). However, our Qur'an has much more extensive illumination which covers not only the headpiece but includes the margins as well. A further Kashmiri Qur'an that sold in these Rooms had a gold and cobalt-blue dominated fully illuminated opening bifolium, (23 October 2007, lot 29). The illumination on that Qur'an does not equal the detail and precise nature of the illumination on our Qur'an which is one of the very best examples of its type.

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