THE SHAKERINE COLLECTION: Calligraphy in Qur’ans and other Manuscripts
THE SHAKERINE COLLECTION: Calligraphy in Qur’ans and other Manuscripts
AN ILLUMINATED QUR’AN, COPIED BY MUHAMMAD AMIN AL-KASHMIRI B. MIR SHAH MUHAMMAD B. MIR AHMAD KHATIB, NORTH INDIA OR PERSIA, MUGHAL OR SAFAVID, DATED 1053 AH/1643 AD
Auction Closed
October 23, 11:03 AM GMT
Estimate
12,000 - 18,000 GBP
Lot Details
Description
AN ILLUMINATED QUR’AN, COPIED BY MUHAMMAD AMIN AL-KASHMIRI B. MIR SHAH MUHAMMAD B. MIR AHMAD KHATIB, NORTH INDIA OR PERSIA, MUGHAL OR SAFAVID, DATED 1053 AH/1643 AD
Arabic manuscript on brown paper, 560 leaves plus 2 fly-leaves, 11 lines to the page, the first, middle and last written in black thuluth, the intervening lines in neat black naskh, ruled in green, orange, gold and blue, verses separated by gold and polychrome dotted roundels, surah headings in red thuluth within clouds within cartouches, polychrome and gold nisf, juz and sajdahs markes in the margins, f.1b and f.2a with a polychrome and gold illuminated frontispiece, in brown stamped leather binding
text panel: 22.8 by 14.2cm.
leaf: 31.1 by 20.8cm.
Sold in these rooms, 17 October 1983, lot 288.
N. Safwat, A Collector’s Eye. Islamic calligraphy in Qur’ans and other manuscripts, London 2010, no.18, pp.90-95.
The layout as well as the illumination and text arrangement of this Qur’an is very similar to a manuscript now in the British Library copied in Herat and dated 1563 (inv.no.13087, published in Lings & Safadi 1976, pp.79-80). Another Qur’an sold in these rooms bears close similarities in terms of layout and alternation of thuluth and naskh (27 April 1994, lot 16). Interestingly the current Qur’an is copied on Indian paper. Both the British Library manuscript as well as the Sotheby’s 1994 Qur’an were once in the possession of members of Shah Jahan’s court and they could have inspired the scribe of the current piece.