Koran

Koran

[manuscript in Arabic]

ca. 18th century

This illuminated Koran is an attractive example of Islamic manuscript illumination. Probably produced sometime in the eighteenth century, the manuscript is written in an elegant cursive script on highly polished paper, bordered with purely geometrical figures radiating symmetrically around a central motif resembling a carpet. The Library owns a number of other Arabic and Persian bindings and manuscripts, many acquired in connection with the 1917 Grolier Club exhibition, “Books and Miniatures from Persia and the Levant.”