Page 12 - ART OF THE ISLAMIC AND INDIAN WORLDS Carpets, Ceramics Objects, Christie's London Oct..27, 2022

A GROUP OF MANUSCRIPTS FROM

THE ABEMAYOR COLLECTION

*1
A KUFIC QUR'AN SECTION
NEAR EAST OR NORTH AFRICA, 8TH/9TH CENTURY
Arabic text on vellum, 162ff. each with 16ll. of black kufic with red diacritics, B.II script is distinguished by the strictly vertical upward strokes on letters
sura headings in gold, small gold and polychrome roundel verse markers, like alef or ta’, and with long elegant curves on initial ha', and final ‘ayn and
margins slightly trimmed, unbound
qaaf. The is also distinctive because of the long descender which the scribe
Each folio approximately 10¿ x 7¬in. (25.7 x 19.5cm.) (162)
has added to final ya’, which loops back on itself and sometimes underlines
£350,000-450,000 US$410,000-510,000 the preceding words. The stark appearance of the script, together with
€400,000-510,000 the fact that it often appears on folios as small as 15x20cm, has led to the
suggestion that it was favoured by more conservative patrons (A. George,
PROVENANCE: The Rise of Islamic Calligraphy, London, 2010, p. 92). However, this is hard to
Michel Abemayor (1912-1975), New York reconcile the use of gold throughout this manuscript, which such a patron
would not have condoned.
While most kufic manuscripts have been broken up and survive only as single
folios or short sections, the length of this section - produced only around Instead, the patron may have opted for this particular script because of
three centuries after the death of the Prophet - makes it a real rarity. As well the clarity with which it demonstrates the geometric properties of kufic.
as its length, what makes the present lot unusual is the fact that so many Kufic calligraphy was organised according to mathematical principles
of the folios follow on from one another: 127 of the folios are in continuous which constructed a page based on a proportional relationship between
sections, the longest of which covers the entirety of the tenth juz’. The folios its elements. On this manuscript, the height of each untrimmed folio is
also contain 19 sura headings, rendered in gold ink. The whole manuscript approximately equal to the width of each text panel. The height of each
is realised in an elegant kufic script, the extraordinary consistency of which text panel is exactly three quarters of that value, and if that value is divided
can only be fully appreciated when a large number of folios from a single by the number of lines per folio (in this case, sixteen) it gives the exact
manuscript are viewed at once. measurement of the height of an alef. In this way, the height of a single letter,
scrupulously maintained by the scribe throughout the manuscript despite
The body of the text is written in an early Abbasid script which according to the parchment being unruled, determines every other element. The skill on
Francois Déroche’s classification system can be described as ‘B.II’. Though display here is a testament to the years of training received by the scribe
this script was described as ‘iraqi by the Austrian orientalist Josef von at a time when the art of calligraphy reached unprecedented heights of
Karabacek in 1918, its discovery in manuscript caches from places as diverse perfection.
as Damascus, Sanaa, Cairo and Kairouan suggests that it was in use across
the Abbasid world. The manuscripts found in Damascus yielded a pair of Other examples of B.II manuscripts can be found in the Khalili collection
dated examples: one was written in AH 229 / 843-4 AD, the other Safar AH (Deroche, 1992, pp.54-57). Folios which appear to come from the same
249 / April 863 AD (F. Déroche, The Abbasid Tradition, Oxford, 1992, p. 36). manuscript as the present lot have been sold in these Rooms, 26 April 2012,
Though the present lot is undated, the sura headings in a D.IV script suggest lot 112, and 28 October 2020, lot 59. For a full list of the suras included in this
that it was probably written in the late ninth or tenth century. section, please refer to the department.

10 In addition to the hammer price, a Buyer’s Premium (plus VAT) is payable. Other taxes and/or an Artist Resale Royalty 11
fee are also payable if the lot has a tax or λ symbol. Check Section D of the Conditions of Sale at the back of this catalogue.