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Books, Autographs & Prints / Part II

Wednesday 31 March 2021, 03:00 PM • Rome

298

Turchia - Anatolia occidentale

Ottoman Quran, 1778

Estimate

€ 500 - 700

Sold

€ 1.792

The price includes buyer's premium

Information

Sheet size: mm. 155 x 100 approx.; dimensions of the writing mirror: mm. 116 x 68 approx.; codex of 303 cards in total (plus one blank) with text distributed on a single column for 15 staves on the front, written in sober Ottoman Nas calligra calligraphy, with colophon drawn up in elegant and easily legible Turkish taͨlīq. The inks used are black for the Koranic text, white for the titles of the suras and red to indicate internal subdivisions of the text for liturgical purposes or to indicate recitative notations. & Nbsp; & nbsp;

(Decorations).

Sumptuous & nbsp; ͨUnwānpolicromo (arabesque geometric decoration opening on double page), containing on the right side (the reverse in the Arabic codes) the entire "Opening" Sura (I, al-Fātiḥa), followed in the one on the left by the first verses (1- 4) of the Sura "of the Cow" (II, al-Baqara). The black and gold contrasting chromatism enriched by soft colors of a basically cold tone (purple, pink, blue background, light blue, white) and the decorative syntax of the double page are very valuable, particularly in the perfectly symmetrical articulation of the overall "jagged" perimeter framing a triumph of buds and modular racemes, and the internal vertical delimitation of the writing mirror, imitating a pair of twisted columns with chiaroscuro effects expressed through black ink. Writing mirror bordered on each card by a rich ǧadwal consisting of a liquid gold band inscribed in a thinner and contiguous white band, enclosed in turn within a simple perimeter line drawn in bright red. Along the text the Koranic verses are separated by golden washers imitating buds, while the titles of the suras, sometimes absent, are framed within narrow horizontal scrolls with a gold background, embellished on the sides by decorations The binding, a few decades after the copy of the text , is in brown leather, with external plates decorated by a regular pattern of golden fronds intersecting in lozenges with gold discs in the center, all delimited by a thick rectangular band also in gold, highlighted by two double golden lines, stretched both inside and outside the band itself. & nbsp;

The binding, a few decades after the copy of the text, is in leather brown, with external plates decorated by a regular pattern of golden fronds intersecting in lozenges with gold discs in the center, all delimited by a thick rectangular band also in gold, highlighted by two double golden lines, stretched both inside than outside the band itself.

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Specialist Notes

Ottoman Turkish Koranic manuscript in Arabic, dated in its colophon at the 4th Raǧab, 1192 AH (= Wednesday, July 29th, AD 1778), and most likely coming from Anatolia.This Koran opens with a strikingly beautiful double-page decoration called ͨunwān, a symmetrical triumph of geometric arabesque shapes in colour and gold. Gold is found throughout the manuscript, both as a symbol and concrete sign of the value of the sacred text of Islam. Golden are the separating roundels between the verses, as well as the frame that delimits the Koran’s text panel, within which the splendid Ottoman classical nasḫ calligraphy unfolds in the copy of the “Islamic divine word”. This lavishly illuminated manuscript serves as a perfect example of how refined the art of calligraphy and book decoration had become within the Ottoman Empire during the last quarter of the 18th century, under the Sultan Abdülhamid 1st (regnavit AD 1774 – 1789).