Page 244 - Ming_China_Courts_and_Contacts_1400_1450 Craig lunas

Plates 26.9–10 Sections of a Qur’an written on Chinese gold-sprinkled paper, attributed to the Timurid court at Herat. Illumination
attributed to the Muhammad Juki illuminator, c. 1440. Leather, paper, ink, colours and gold, book: 44.5 x 38.1cm, manuscript: 30.5 x 26.7cm.
Detroit Insitute of Arts, City of Detroit Purchase, 30.323
write on paper which had been smoothed and covered with surface. Some volumes contain the classics of Persian
a coating of starch. The paper made and used in Iran and literature and some carry the text of the Qur’an. Dated
Central Asia is well suited to this technique of writing. examples suggest that most of these manuscripts were
24
During the reign of Shah Rukh, however, a very different produced in the 1430s or 1440s.
type of paper was used to copy a few manuscripts. It was A Qur’an now in Detroit is a good example of this group.
much heavier than ordinary paper, was dyed in various The two opening pages of its text are its most lavishly
colours, decorated with gold and had a smooth and waxy ornamented pages and have been published in a number of
Plate 26.11 Preface to the Shahnama of Firdawsi, text composed by Plate 26.12 ‘Gushtasp plays polo before the Qaysar’, illustration
Baysunghur b. Shah Rukh, Herat, c. 1444. Gouache on paper, height from the Shahnama of Firdawsi, c. 1444. Gouache on paper, height
24.7cm, width 13.5cm. Royal Asiatic Society, Persian 239 fol.3b 22cm, width 15cm. Royal Asiatic Society, Persian 239 fol.252a

234 | Ming China: Courts and Contacts 1400–1450