Complete Description
Sourates I à IV, soit le premier des sept manzil-s du Coran, manuscrit arabe sur papier, 183 feuillets plus 3 pages de garde, chaque feuillet avec 7 lignes de thuluth noir cerné d’or, la traduction persane interlinéaire en nastali’q rouge, jadwal à l’or et encre bleue, le frontispice contenant la Fatiha copieusement enluminé à l’or et pigments polychromes, la double page suivante contenant les premiers versets de la sourate II (la vache), également enluminée, chaque début de juz’ décoré d’enluminures florales, titres de sourates en thuluth blanc sur fond d’or dans des cartouches enluminés, sections du Coran marquées de médaillons marginaux enluminés, le finispice copieusement enluminé, réclames, folioté, dans une reliure d’époque en laque à décor floral, les doublures décorées de papier gaufré doré, anciennes restaurations, les gardes refaites, état fragile.
Dim. : 20,3 x 11 cm (texte) ; 28,7 x 17,5 cm (feuillet)
Christie’s, Londres, 6 octobre 2011: n°400 (ill.)
Collection particulière belge
This very fine manuscript comprises the first four surahs of the Qur’an (al-Fātiḥa, al-Baqara, Āl ʿImrān and al-Nisāʾ); it thus constitutes the first of the seven manzils of the Qur’an, intended to be read on the first day of the week. Its frontispiece and particularly refined illuminations point to a luxurious commission intended for the aristocracy. The style of the illuminated frontispiece follows that developed in Safavid Iran in the sixteenth century. Movements of artists between Iran and India, towards the Mughal court or those of the Deccan, ensured a shared artistic language, particularly in the field of the arts of the book.
Indian copyists of Qur’ans rarely tended to sign their works, and like many other Qur’ans of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, this manuscript is neither dated nor signed. Nevertheless, the style of the illumination and the calligraphy suggests a dating in the seventeenth century. Although the style continued into the first half of the eighteenth century, it here lacks the myriad small rosettes and flowers that characterise eighteenth-century illumination (see a Qur’an from the former Shakerine collection, sold at Sotheby’s, London, 23 October 2019, no. 22, dated to the seventeenth century, and two others dated 1732 and 1738–39, sold respectively at Christie’s, London, 26 October 2017, no. 158, and Sotheby’s, 26 April 2023, no. 27).
The naskh calligraphy corresponds to the style developed by the celebrated Muhammad ʿĀrif al-Harawī, known by the honorific title Yāqūt Raqam Khān. Active during the second half of the seventeenth century and the beginning of the eighteenth, he was tutor to the sons of Aurangzeb (r. 1658–1707) and received his honorific title of Yāqūt (“ruby”) from Shāh ʿĀlam (r. 1707–12). His calligraphic style spread throughout India through his many pupils and remained widely used for Qur’anic calligraphy until the nineteenth century.
It is possible that the very fine lacquer binding of this manuscript is original, despite the many alterations undergone by the codex: the floral decorations of the illuminated cartouches adorning both boards appear to be related to the illumination of the frontispiece. Very few Mughal bindings from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries survive, particularly in this lacquer technique. A few examples of painted and lacquered wooden boxes from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries are held in museums (David Collection, Copenhagen, inv. 29/2014), but few bindings are documented. The motif of a flowering vase decorating both boards recalls Deccani floral compositions, and it is possible that this manuscript was produced at a Deccan court (Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, inv. 2022.204; Bonhams, London, 5 April 2011, no. 236).
