Arts of the Islamic World & India including Fine Rugs and Carpets
Arts of the Islamic World & India including Fine Rugs and Carpets
A Qur'an leaf in Kufic script on vellum, North Africa or Andalusia, 9th/10th century
Auction Closed
March 30, 12:47 PM GMT
Estimate
10,000 - 15,000 GBP
Lot Details
Description
text: surah al-rum (XXX), middle of v.30 to end of v.40
Arabic manuscript on vellum, 14 lines to the page written in elongated Kufic in dark brown ink, diacritics in the form of red and yellow dots, verses separated by a triangular cluster of three gold dots, khamsa marker in the shape of an inverted comma, ‘ashr marker in the shape of a polychrome and gold rosette containing the letter lam
25 by 32.5cm.
The attribution to the western Mediterranean is based on comparison with leaves which have been ascribed to Andalusia on the basis of the use of the Maghribi abjad markers in the ‘ashr rosette. A Qur’an section offered at Christie’s, 2 May 2019 lot 2, of similar dimensions and with the same number of lines to the page, presented comparable ‘ashr markers consisting of golden rosettes encircling a letter outlined in black. In that section the number sixty is indicated with the letter sad instead of the letter sin, which might suggest that it was copied in the Western Mediterranean (Fraser & Kwiatkowski 2006, p.44). The ‘ashr marker on this leaf used the letter lam to indicate the numeral thirty, standard for both Eastern and Maghribi numerical values (Déroche 2015, p.96).