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ⓁImportant set of nine leaves from an Ilkhanid monumental Qu…
See original version (French)
27
-
ⓁImportant set of nine leaves from an Ilkhanid monumental Qu…
See original version (French)
Estimate €5,000 - €7,000
Voluntary lot
Description
ⓁImportant set of nine leaves from an Ilkhanid monumental Qur'an.
Iran or Iraq, Ilkhanid dynasty, late 13th - first half of 14th century.
On cream paper, calligraphed in monumental muhaqqaq in brown ink, with 11 lines per page. The ends of the verses are marked with polychrome rosettes in gold and blue, and groups of five and ten verses with elegant pear-shaped palmettes in gold and blue, set in the margins. Sura title inscribed in white muhaqqaq on gilt-ground cartouches finely illuminated with foliage and palmettes, extended in the margins by poly-lobed palmettes. Unbound.
Size: 42.9 × 30.6 cm (16 7/8 × 12 1/16 in.)
Qur'an:
Sura al-Ma'ida (s. 5), verses 114 to 120 ;
Sura al-An'am (s. 6), verses 1 to 7 ;
Sura al-Isra' (s. 17), verses 19 to 39 (two leaves) ;
Sura as-Sajda (s. 32), verses 9 to 19 ;
Sura Saba' (s. 34), verses 1 to 50 (six leaves) ;
Sura Fatir (s. 35), verses 11 to 31 (two leaves).
Comparative bibliography
Martin Lings and Yasin Hamid Safadi, The Qur'an, exhibition catalogue, London, 1976, p. 68.
Nasser Mansour and Mark Allan, Sacred Script: Muhaqqaq in Islamic Calligraphy, London, 2011.
Similar work :
Fourteenth-century monumental Qur'an, Islamic Museum, Jerusalem, see K. Salameh, The Qur'an Manuscripts in the al-Haram al-Sharif Islamic Museum, Jerusalem, 2001, no. 16, pp. 90-94.
These nine leaves belong to a monumental Qur'an, characteristic of the great Ilkhanid Qur'anic commission - a ceremonial manuscript designed to endow a mausoleum, mosque or madrasa.
Muhaqqaq calligraphy, which is broad and powerful, corresponds to the golden age of this script under the Ilkhanids: codified in Baghdad by Yaqut al-Musta'simi (d. 1298), it was adopted by the Mongol rulers as the canonical script for the sacred text, and deployed in the great workshops of Baghdad, Mosul, Tabriz and Hamadan. As Lings and Safadi have pointed out, Ilkhanid Qur'ans survived in much smaller numbers than their Mamluk cousins, largely due to the Timurid invasions at the end of the 14th century, which spared Mamluk Egypt.
A group of nine folios from a monumental Ilkhanid Qur'an, Iran or Iraq, Ilkhanid period, late 13th - first half of the 14th century.
with 11 lines of elegant muhaqqaq to the page, in brown ink, occasional red diacritics, gilt rosette verse markers, large gilt and polychrome marginal roundels and palmettes, sura headings in white muhaqqaq on a ground of gilt swirling vines issuing palmettes into the margins.
Location:
The work is currently stored in London; please contact the department for further information.
Notes:
British VAT of 20% will apply to this lot currently located in London. In case of export from UK, VAT on sale fees can be refunded upon presentation of customs documentation.
See original version (French)
Auto-translation. Refer to original language for legal validity.
Pictures credits: Contact the Auction House
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