Quran (Iran?, mid-16th century)

MS 215

The Quran of the vicar of Charlbury

This manuscript once belonged to William Stoddart (1809-1856), who was a St John’s fellow between 1828 and 1853, and then vicar of Charlbury (Oxfordshire) from 1853 until his death.

‘A richly illuminated manuscript, using coloured inks, opaque watercolours, and gilt. The first sūrah is written on facing folios (1b and 2a) within scalloped ogival lozenges of gilt ground which are encompassed by scalloped dark-blue bands filled with intertwined vines lying within gilt scalloped
bands with similar vines; this arrangement is then enclosed by a narrow rectangular frame of black,
gilt, and dark-blue fillets, the latter filled with white dots. The frame is then surrounded by a wide, scalloped design of gilt and dark blue, over-painted with intertwined vines; the margins are decorated with blue-inked geometrical pendants with the ground between filled with pale gold-painted small flower-heads. The text is written in black ink, except for the headings which are broad
letters of fine black lines filled with white opaque watercolours. There are large circular text-stops with the number of the verses written in red ink in Arabic letter-numerals; the ground between the
lines is filled with small flower-heads and vines.
‘The main text, in a very small Naskh script, is written within frames formed on fine black, gilt, and red fillets. The paper of the text area is gold sprinkled. The text-stops on all the folios that do not have a gilt ground are filled with gilt. The verses are numbered in red ink with Arabic letter-numerals. Throughout the volume, the titles of sūrahs, and occasionally the total number of verses, are written in white opaque watercolour (outlined in black ink) on a gilt ground, set in a panel surrounded by a dark-blue narrow frame.
‘There are circular gilt and dark-blue medallions in the margins at various intervals, and the margins are filled with gold-painted designs of foliage.
‘The very thin, biscuit paper has a thickness of 0.04-0.06mm.
(Savage-Smith, pp. 88-9)

Further Resource
Descriptive catalogue record available at our Digital Library (scroll down to MS 215)