- Title
- Page from a Manuscript of the Qur'an (64:16-17; 64:18, 65:1)
- Culture
- Spanish
- Date Made
- 13th century
- Medium
- Ink, colors, and gold on dyed paper
- Dimensions
- Image and sheet: 13 1/4 x 10 1/4 in. (33.63 x 26.04 cm)
- Accession Number
- M.2006.141
- Collecting Area
- Art of the Middle East: Islamic
- Curatorial Notes
Unlike most Qur’anic manuscripts produced in thirteenth-century Spain, which were square in format and copied on parchment, the manuscript to which this page belonged was made from paper. The page’s rectangular format and pink color are also unusual. The pink-tinted paper was perhaps produced in Játiva, in the province of Valencia, one of the earliest cities in Spain where paper mills were founded. More typically, the text is written in Maghribi, a cursive script descended from Kufic but with graceful, deeply curved lines. Here the end of one surah (chapter) and the beginning of the next are marked by an illuminated cartouche. The folio also includes the Arabic word hubus, or "pious foundation," which is pricked with a needle at the top right corner.
- Selected Bibliography
- Fraser, Marcus, and Will Kwiatkowski. Ink and Gold: Islamic Calligraphy. London: Paul Holberton, 2006.
- Komaroff, Linda. Beauty and Identity: Islamic Art from the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 2016.
