A large illuminated Qur'an, Indonesia, North Sumatra, Aceh, late 19th century

The origin of this Qur’an can be determined by its distinctive illumination which is typical of manuscript production in Aceh, North Sumatra. Double decorated frames with extended vertical borders and arched motifs on the sides of the text panels can be seen at the beginning and in the middle of our Qur’an. The ‘reserved white’ or background colour of the paper is noticeably visible through the illumination. There is another nineteenth century Qur’an from Aceh with comparable decoration, and a colour palette of red, yellow, black and white, with a similar detached leather binding in the collection of the British Library, London (acc. no.Or 16915).

Unusually, the calligrapher of our Qur’an ends the manuscript with surah al-Ikhlas and has not included the final two chapters of the Qur’an. There is an illuminated double page in the beginning of the manuscript and and a double page in the middle. The illuminated bifolia have two blank pages preceding and following them. The manuscript is lacking a final illuminated bifolium which would have contained the last two missing surahs. It is quite likely that the illuminated pages had been prepared separately, with the text written by a different scribe, before being added to the main body of the manuscript which appears to be in a slightly different hand.

A noteworthy aspect of this Qur’an is its paper, which bears the watermark of Andrea Galvani, one of the best known north Italian papermakers. The Galvani family is recorded as making paper since the first quarter of the eighteenth century. Based in the Veneto, in the north of Italy, they owned several mills and a ceramic factory, exporting their products all over Africa and Asia. Several Arabic manuscripts attributed to the Sub-Saharan region were written on Galvani’s watermarked paper and since the 1730s their paper was largely exported to the Near East. Different watermarks can be linked to the Galvani family and attributed to different periods of their business. For further information on the Galvani watermark, see Michaelle Biddle’s article, 'New Strategies in using watermarks to date sub-Saharan Islamic manuscripts', published by De Gruyter 2017, available online: https://www.degruyter.com/downloadpdf/books/9783110541441/9783110541441-002/9783110541441-002.pdf

The watermark in the present lot depicts a crescent moon with a face within a simple crest on some pages, and a countermark with the letters ‘AG’ on other pages. This countermark was adopted in 1836 and was used until the late nineteenth century. ‘AG’ with the moon face in a simple crest and Andrea Galvani Pordenone in cursive script was used on sheets from 1846 to the early twentieth century (Biddle 2017, ibid, pp.52, 56).

For an extensive discussion on Arabic manuscripts from South East Asia, see Annabel Gallop’s contribution: 'Islamic manuscript art of Southeast Asia', Crescent moon: Islamic art & Civilisation in Southeast Asia, James Bennett (ed.), Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, 2005, pp.156-183. See also Annabel Gallop's article 'Fake or fancies? Some ‘problematic’ Islamic manuscripts from South East Asia' in Manuscript Cultures no.10, Hamburg, 2017. Another large illuminated Qur’an from Indonesia, dated 1315 AH/1897-98 AD, also on Andrea Galvani watermarked paper, was sold in these rooms, 10 June 2020, lot 54.