Illuminated Manuscript Koran, The right side of a double-page illumination, Walters Art Museum MS. W.575, fol. 2b (by Walters Art Museum Illuminated Manuscripts)
This small, illuminated single-volume copy of Qurʾan was produced in Iran in the thirteenth century AH / nineteenth CE. The manuscript opens with an illuminated double-page incipit with the verses of chapter 1 (Sūrat al-fātiḥah) and the initial verses of chapter 2 (Sūrat al-baqarah) decorated with interlinear illumination and framed by a polychrome border and headpieces of floral design on a blue ground (fols. 2b-3a) . The text is written in a vocalized naskh script in black with reading marks in red and text divisions of sixty verses (ḥizb), thirty verses (juzʾ), and niṣf al-juzʾ inscribed in red in the margins. Illuminated discs with colored dots separate the verses. Chapter headings are in red or blue riqāʿ script on a gold background. The nineteenth-century lacquer binding with floral composition on a red field is contemporary with the manuscript.
