A beautifully illuminated leaf from a book of prayers dated AH1211 (AD1799), showing the masterful divergence of floral decoration in traditional Qur'anic scripture. The damaged prayer book was obtained from Marrakesh and subsequently auctioned in the UK in the turn of the century. The script is Ottoman nashki rather than Maghribi, so it was almost certainly imported to Morocco from the Middle East. The leaf is divided by a Chapter heading into an upper boxed scripture of 4 lines and a lower boxed areas of 5 lines of scripture. the header itself is white 'thuluth' on gold within a cartouche, with beautiful floral bookends in celestial blue and a finely decorated full border. See image 1a. The aya marking the verses are a mix of unusual floral illuminations. There is also a wonderful floral decoration above the first line of scripture in the lower box (See image 1g), intended to embellish and heighten the standard scripture "God the most gracious, most merciful", which starts each new Chapter. This is a wonderfully decorative leaf in really good condition and over 2 centuries old. Please note that shipping costs are not solely the cost of the postal delivery service itself. Included within the shipping price is the work undertaken to prepare the article, for photography, for uploading to Catawiki, for preparation and packaging the article securely and for transporting the article to the postal delivery agent for processing. Also, please consider when bidding on this lot that this artwork is shipped from the UK. Import duties will now have to be paid by the recipient to the Postal Service when the parcel arrives in your country. This will likely vary between 5% and 20% of the sale price depending on your country's Import Rate, so please check this if you are concerned. This is a Tax collected on behalf of your Government and is not an additional fee charged by us.