SIGNED MUHAMMAD TAQI BIN MUHAMMAD 'ALI, QAJAR IRAN, DATED AH 1265/1848-49 AD

Details

QUR'AN
SIGNED MUHAMMAD TAQI BIN MUHAMMAD 'ALI, QAJAR IRAN, DATED AH 1265/1848-49 AD
Arabic manuscript on paper, 266ff. plus 4 fly-leaves, each folio with 14ll. of elegant black naskh in white clouds reserved against gold ground, Persian interlinear translation in red nasta'liq, small gold and polychrome verse markers, laid down within gold and polychrome rules, sura headings in gold muhaqqaq on either red or blue ground flanked on either side with gold and polychrome scrolling vine, large juz' markers in the margins with the number written in gold set inside a floral stellar medallion, nasta'liq catchwords in the lower left hand corner, occasional marginal commentary written in black nasta'liq in white clouds on gold ground set in large cusped cartouches, the opening bifolio fully illuminated with gold and polychrome floral designs set inside rectangular cartouches bounded by bands of strapwork, the colophon with a dedication to Nasr al-Din Shah Qajar, signed al-Hajj Muhammad Taqi bin Muhammad 'Ail al-Sharif al-Musawi and dated1265, in contemporaneous floral lacquer binding
Text panel 8¼ x 4½in. (21 x 12cm.); folio 11 x 7in. (28 x 17.8cm.)

Engraved

The colophon reads, 'By way of a gift to his Excellence, the Command of Justice, His Highness, whose destiny is power, whose court is the universe, of the station of the Pleiades, of the rank the Alexander, whose doorkeeper is Darius, the Shadow of God in the two worlds, the Sultan son of the Sultan son of the Sultan and the Khaqan son of the Khaqan son of the Khaqan, the most just Sultan, the most generous, the most magnificent. It was completed by the hand of the wretched, the poor, who calls for the perpetuity of the victorious and shining country, the smallest, al-Hajj Muhamamd Taqi binMuhammad 'Ali, the Musawi Sharif, in the year 1265'

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Lot Essay

Our scribe, Muhammad Taqi bin Muhammad 'Ali, copied another Qu'ran for Nasir al-Din Shah in Rajab AH 1268/April-May 1852 AD. That copy is in the Gulistan Palace Library (Mehdi Bayani, Ahval va Asar-e Khosh-Nevisan, Tehran, 1363/1984, p.1154).

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