Manuscript of the Qur’an, with lacquer binding

Artists

Description

The manuscript is composed of earlier text pages remounted on larger folios. The original text area is very small and copied in naskh script in black ink, 12 lines to a page. According to the colophon it was copied by Fathallah ibn Muhammad `Ali Isfahani on 25 Safar 1040 H (3 October 1630). These folios were later remounted on larger folios which are copied with Arabic commentary in a different hand. The name of this second scribe, Ibn Haji Mirza Muhammad Taqi Abd al-Husayn Isfahani, can be found in the margin of the colophon page along with the date 1273 (1856-7) and the patron Mirza Muhammad Zaki, Vazir of Isfahan. The lacquer binding on the outer covers, datable to c. 1850-75, is decorated with a large rose branch on a tan ground. The inner covers have floral arabesques on a red ground in the field and a framing border filled with arabesques.

Dimensions

21.1 × 13.6 × 4 cm (8 5/16 × 5 3/8 × 1 9/16 in.)

Provenance

Ezzat-Malek Soudavar, Geneva, Switzerland (by 2014), by descent; to her son Abolala Soudavar, Houston, Texas (2014), gift; to Harvard Art Museums, 2014. Note: Ezzat-Malek Soudavar (1913-2014) formed this collection over a period of sixty years. She purchased the works of art on the international art market.