A LOOSE KUFIC QUR'AN FOLIO
Near East or North Africa, late 9th - early 10th century

Arabic manuscript on vellum, Sura al-Ahzab (33), vv. 43 - 45, 6ll. of sepia ink Abbasid Kufic script to the page, diacritic marks in red, verse markers in lobed gold rosettes, no evidence of further marginal illumination, mounted, glazed and framed, the folio 13.5cm x 22cm, 24cm x 31.5cm including the frame.

Provenance: Dreweatts Auction, Newbury (UK), Chinese Ceramics & Asian Works of Art, 22 May 2018, lot 384.

For an almost identical example, with seven instead of six lines to the page, please see the Qur'an leaf in Kufic script in the publication by M. Fraser and W. Kwiatkowski, Ink and Gold: Islamic Calligraphy, 2006, cat. 8, pp. 40 - 41. The main difference here is the design of the golden verse markers (triangular clusters of six gold dots vs. rosette roundels). Both folios showcase the mature Abbasid style of Kufic script, equating to Déroche's classification D.1. Although the use of horizontal letter stretching (mashq) in the present lot is quite moderate compared to the published example, the absence of letter-pointing and the almost imperceptible presence of red diacritic marks without any further markers or illumination devices make the primary function of both Qur'an folios clear: the focus is on the austerity and beauty of the calligraphy, rather than on its function.