A Qur'an leaf in gold and black muhaqqaq script, Persia, probably Shiraz, mid-16th Century

Arabic manuscript on cream-coloured paper, 12 lines to the page written in elegant muhaqqaq script in alternating black and gold with diacritics and vowel points in red and black, on alternating pale blue, buff, brown and buff grounds, roundels decorated with coloured dots marking the verse-endings, interlinear rules in blue, inner margins ruled in colours and gold, illuminated marginal devices, in mount
leaf 360 x 255 mm.

Provenance
The Shakerine Collection.

Text
Sura XI, Hud (The Prophet Hud), part of verse 14–part of verse 29.

This leaf comes from a dispersed manuscript of the Qur'an which epitomises the high quality of work being done in cities like Shiraz at this date. The use of muhaqqaq (favoured because of its flowing form) and of alternating black and gold, are typical, but the green and brown sprinkling is much less so.

Another folio from the same Qur'an is in the Khalili Collection of Islamic Art (see David James, After Timur: Qur'ans of the 15th and 16th Centuries, Oxford 1992, pp. 170-171, no. 42). Other leaves from the manuscript have appeared in these rooms, Bonhams, Islamic and Indian Art, 10th April 2008, lot 19; 7th October 2010, lot 10; and at Sotheby's, 23rd November 1976, lots 317-319; 3rd May 1977, lots 96-100; 18th July 1978, lots 177-79; 9th October 1978, lots 3-4; 24th April 1979, lots 229-235; 23rd April 1997, lot 44; 15th October 1998, lot 29; 3rd May 2001, lot 13; 19th October 2016, lot 168.

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