An Illuminated Qajar Qur'an, copied by Muhammad Shafi' Al-Visal Ibn Muhammad Isma'il, Persia, dated 1256 AH/1840 AD

Arabic manuscript on polished paper, 271 leaves plus 4 flyleaves, 17 lines to the page written in neat naskh script in black ink, verses separated by small segmented florets pointed in blue and red, surah headings in gold thuluth script against alternating red and blue ground cartouches with floral decoration, marginal illuminations marking the surah mid-points and the juz' numbers composed of floral motifs with blue grounds, margins ruled in gold, black and blue, 4 opening double page illuminated frontispieces consisting of the surah index, prayers and the opening of the Qur'an, decorated with dense patterns of polychrome floral scrolls and strapwork borders, fine lacquerwork borders of corresponding decoration, with doublures depicting flowering plants, with fitted leather box

Muhammad Shafi' acquired his famous pen-name 'Visal' after 1239 AH/1823 AD and is one of the most renowned calligraphers of nineteenth century Persia. In the colophon the scribe states that this Qur'an is the sixty-fourth manuscript that he has written. A further Qur'an (his first using the pen-name Visal) is in the Nasser D. Khalili Collection (published in Bayani et al, The Decorated Word, Part Two, London, 2009, pp.70-75, no.12).

The fine and contemporary lacquer binding of this manuscript can also be compared to a further manuscript in the Khalili Collection (see Khalili et al, Lacquer of the Islamic Lands, Part Two, pp.194-5, no.418, and also pp.162-3, no.376, for a comparison for the doublures of the present Qur'an).