India
17th century
ink, gold and opaque watercolour on paper
written in thulth, outlined in gold and filled with ghubar script
36.6 x 30cm (folio 1); and 36.6 x 33.3cm (folio 2)
The text on folio 1, verso, reads, ‘In the name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful’; that on folio 2, recto, ‘the Greatest of Names, the All-Knowing, the Wise’. Qur’anic verses, written in ghubar script, fill out the shapes of the letters.
N.F. Safwat, The Art of the Pen. Calligraphy of the 14th to 20th Centuries, The Nasser D. Khalili Collection of Islamic Art, volume V, London 1996, cat.127–8, pp.186–8.