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QUR'AN GOLCONDA, DECCAN, CENTRAL INDIA, 17TH CENTURY Arabic manuscript on paper, 398ff., each folio with 11ll. of black naskh in polychrome panels, within gold and black interlinear rules, gold and blue outer rules, gold and red roundel verse markers, sura headings in gold thuluth on gold and polychrome illuminated floral panels, polychrome floral illuminated margins, khams, 'ashr, hizb and juz' marginal markers in gold thuluth, the opening bifolio with gold and polychrome illumination framing 5ll. of naskh, first folio with later owners' notes, in brown morocco with stamped and gilt lobed cartouche and spandrels, cream paper doublures Text panel 12 7/8 x 6 1/8in. (32.6 x 15.5cm.); folio 17 7/8 x 9 5/8in. (45.3 x 24.4cm.)
The strong Persianate style of illuminated manuscripts from Golconda in the 16th and 17th centuries indicates the close cultural link with Safavid Iran. There were Persian calligraphers who were working in the Safavid style at the court of the Qutb Shahi rulers in Golconda. A Qur’an manuscript, thought to have been produced in Golconda and dated to c.1560-1600, now in the Al-Sabah Collection in Kuwait (LNS 277 MS) is by the hand of ‘Abd al-Qadir al-Husaini al-Shirazi. There are ten known manuscripts associated with ‘Abd al-Qadir, including Qur’ans, some of them bearing Qutb Shahi seals which indicates that he had moved from his native city of Shiraz to Golconda (Haidar and Sarkar, 2015, no. 98, pp.204-205).
In the present example, the varied hues of pinks, blues and greens included in the finely executed polychrome illumination of the opening bifolio, which are also echoed in the coloured backgrounds of sura headings on the rest of the pages, illustrate a creative Deccani contribution to this Safavid tradition. The delicate pink and blue flowers with darker outlines observed in the illuminated headpiece (sar luh) of our bifolio are almost identical to the flowers seen in the opening folio of a Sharafnama (Book of Honour) of Nizami, attributed to Golconda and dated to circa 1620-30, which was formerly in the Kronos Collections and is now in the Metropolitan Museum in New York (acc.no.1986.500.2a-h).
Another noteworthy feature of our Qur’an which indicates an attribution to Golconda is the use of bright orange in the illumination. This can be seen in the circular gold verse dividers with their orange centres, and the illuminated verse headings within cusped medallions with bright orange outlines arranged in different coloured ruled compartments. Comparison can be drawn with folios from an album of calligraphy in the Chester Beatty Library in Dublin (Persian Ms.225), dated to the late 16th or early 17th century and attributed to Golconda or Hyderabad, where the verses are written in different coloured inks and similarly arranged in ruled compartments (see Haidar and Sardar, 2015, no. 104, pp.210-211). The texture of the paper of our Qur’an also suggests an Indian origin as it lacks the glossiness usually associated with Persian paper of the Safavid period.
The elegant stencilled margins of our Qur’an pages with floral decoration in pastel shades are reminiscent of the taste for marbled album leaves in the Deccan. Originating in Iran in the 15th century, the taste for beautiful coloured ‘clouded’ papers, known as kaghaz-i abri or simply abri, reached India in the last quarter of the 16th century. The artists who worked on abri also worked on other techniques such as dyeing and flecking gold on paper as well as illumination methods like decoupage and stencilling (Haidar and Sarkar, ibid., p.157). For a Deccani album page from Golconda or Bijapur in this sale, dated to circa 1600, which illustrates the use of découpé in its gold illumination, see lot 70 in this sale.
For another large format, single volume Qur’an in the Khalili Collection which is attributed to 17th century Golconda, see Bayani, Contadini and Stanley, 1999, no.63, pp.196-199). For other Qur’ans attributed to the Golconda Sultanate or the Deccan which have sold at auction recently, see Sotheby’s, London, 5 October 2010, lot 41; Christie’s, South Kensington, 24 April 2015, lot 297; Christie’s, London, 12 October 2004, lot 35.
