.jpg?w=1)
.jpg?w=1)
拍品專文
This visually impressive folio is an important example which illustrates the transition of style from the earlier more typical kufic towards the more angular and accentuated regional styles of what have been called 'Eastern' and 'Western' kufic. The elegantly tall vertical strokes of letters such as the 'alif' and the 'lam' are visually very striking. The calligraphy is also characterised by its extended verticals on the 'kaf' and lam-alif' letters which have gentle obliquely curved terminals. The calligraphic style of our folio is most closely defined by Alain George's 'D.Vb group' which he terms as being part of 'the codification of cursive script' (Alain George, The Rise of Islamic Calligraphy, London, 2010, p. 156).
The rounded letters present in the gold sura heading are an interesting contrast to the body of the main text. The calligraphy in the sura heading is very similar to the calligraphy in a sura heading which adorns the 'Isfahan' Qur'an dated Ramadan AH 383/October- November 993 AD (Khalili Collection inv.KFQ90, François Déroche, The Abbasid Tradition, London, 1992, no.83, p.154). Both our folio and the example from the Isfahan Qur'an have sura headings in gold with wide rounded letters set inside a rectangular cartouche with a border resembling chain links. This attribution to Isfahan would suggest that our folio is from the Eastern Islamic world and therefore an early example of the transition towards 'Eastern' kufic. However, the marginal palmette attached to the sura heading is quite different from the example in the Isfahan Qur'an. The quite graphic geometric cross-hatched pattern with the blue dashed outer border is very closely related to an illuminated frontispiece attributed to North Africa or Andalusia. Sections of that dispersed Qur'an with comparable illuminated cross-hatched palmettes are held in the Turk ve Islam Eserleri Muzesi, (inv. TIEM 552), and in the collection of the Chester Beatty Library in Dublin, (inv. CBL Ms. 1411; 1400 Yilinda Kur'an-i Kerim, exhibition catalogue, Istanbul, no.36, p.198; David James, Qur'ans and Bindings from the Chester Beatty Library, London, 1980, no. 6, p. 19). This would suggest attributing our present folio to the Maghreb rather than the Eastern Islamic world. Folios from this Qur'an only very rarely appear on the market. In the recent past two further folios from this exact Qur'an were offered at Sotheby's 29 April 1998 lots 10 and 11. The Sotheby's examples however did not have an illuminated sura heading.
The rounded letters present in the gold sura heading are an interesting contrast to the body of the main text. The calligraphy in the sura heading is very similar to the calligraphy in a sura heading which adorns the 'Isfahan' Qur'an dated Ramadan AH 383/October- November 993 AD (Khalili Collection inv.KFQ90, François Déroche, The Abbasid Tradition, London, 1992, no.83, p.154). Both our folio and the example from the Isfahan Qur'an have sura headings in gold with wide rounded letters set inside a rectangular cartouche with a border resembling chain links. This attribution to Isfahan would suggest that our folio is from the Eastern Islamic world and therefore an early example of the transition towards 'Eastern' kufic. However, the marginal palmette attached to the sura heading is quite different from the example in the Isfahan Qur'an. The quite graphic geometric cross-hatched pattern with the blue dashed outer border is very closely related to an illuminated frontispiece attributed to North Africa or Andalusia. Sections of that dispersed Qur'an with comparable illuminated cross-hatched palmettes are held in the Turk ve Islam Eserleri Muzesi, (inv. TIEM 552), and in the collection of the Chester Beatty Library in Dublin, (inv. CBL Ms. 1411; 1400 Yilinda Kur'an-i Kerim, exhibition catalogue, Istanbul, no.36, p.198; David James, Qur'ans and Bindings from the Chester Beatty Library, London, 1980, no. 6, p. 19). This would suggest attributing our present folio to the Maghreb rather than the Eastern Islamic world. Folios from this Qur'an only very rarely appear on the market. In the recent past two further folios from this exact Qur'an were offered at Sotheby's 29 April 1998 lots 10 and 11. The Sotheby's examples however did not have an illuminated sura heading.