Black, blue and gold script alternates down a Qur'an folio

Twelve lines of angular Qur'anic script fill the page, the words alternating between black, blue and gold-brown ink line by line. Small gold rosettes mark verse divisions partway down the text. In the left margin, a teardrop-shaped illuminated finial in gold, blue and orange hangs from a small red-and-gold flower, with a smaller heart-shaped ornament below it; beneath these, a narrow column of smaller black script, some words picked out in red, runs down the page.

Calligraphy is the most honoured of the Islamic arts, because it carries the text of the Qur'an. From the angular Kufic of the earliest manuscripts to the rounded naskh, muhaqqaq and thuluth scripts codified by Ibn Muqla and Ibn al-Bawwab, and the hanging nasta'liq of Persia, calligraphers and illuminators produced Qur'an pages, album leaves and carpet-page frontispieces of extraordinary refinement, often on gold-flecked or richly bordered paper. Leaves of this kind are held by the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the British Library, the Chester Beatty Library and the Museum of Turkish and Islamic Arts in Istanbul.

Printed as a museum-grade giclée on Hahnemühle fine art paper using 12-ink archival pigment printing. Available handframed in FSC-certified wood with optional float glass, or unframed. Ships worldwide with free delivery to 30+ countries.