A journey to search my soul

This is a blog of my personal collections. The purpose of this blog is to educate myself and public in regards to antiquities especially related to religion and calligraphy. I welcome everyone to input their feedback in this blog which they think would be helpful. I do not watermark the photos in this blog so everyone is free to use them as long as they are not used for illegal and unethical reasons. I appreciate if you could notify me if you plan to use any of the photos here. Enjoy browsing!!

Thursday, January 22, 2015

Ancient Manuscript Review 153 : Antique Malay Quran Manuscript 18th Century





 
This is a beautifully written Quran manuscript originated from South East Asia. This is a complete Quran without any missing pages. This manuscript is written in Malay-Naskh calligraphy in black ink on Dutch beige paper 15 lines to a page. Brown leather binding beautifully embossed in a floral design.Some pages are loose, water stained and torn with fraying edges.All headings are written in red with every “ ayaah” or verses are separated by small red circle.  
 
The borders of the pages are ruled with red ( inset) and black ( outset).About 200+ leaves ( 400+ pages). This Quran is undated but we estimated it from 18th century based from the watermark on most of the pages. The watermark bears the words Concordia Res Parvae Crescunt ( Through concord little things grow) and a crowned lion, a typical theme used by VOC Dutch ( 1603-1800CE) during occupation in Indonesia. I acquired this manuscript from a friend in Indonesia in 2014.

Manuscript Specs
Item : Antique Malay Quran
Manuscript Content : Quran
Dim : 33 cm x 21 cm x 3 cm
Date : 18th century
Copyist : anonymous
Origin : South East Asia
Calligraphy : Malay - Naskh
Design : Written in Malay-Naskh scripts in red & black
Purchased Price :US

3 comments:

  1. The paper with watermark CONCORDIA RES PARVAE CRESCUNT was made after 1846 by van der Ley in Holland.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yes its true, its 19th century paper not 18th century paper

      Delete
  2. I have a text dated to late 1690s that bears this same watermark on the front endpaper. I'll have to go through the rest of the text to see if I find other instances, but it certainly could be that the text was rebound after 1846. That, however, strikes me as unlikely since it's a velum binding etc.

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