Asian and African studies blog

The 'Palmer Family' is now on display at the British Library. Visitors to the Library can view the painting on the 3rd floor landing, near the entrance to the Science Reading Room and opposite the entrance to the Asian & African Studies Read Room. Due to the popularity and the high number of requests to be viewed by both researchers and descendants of William Palmer, the portrait has returned to the public area.

Major William Palmer with his second wife, the Mughal princess Bibi Faiz Bakhsh by Johann Zoffany, 1785. Oil on canvas; 40 by 50 ins (127 by 101.5 cms). British Library, F597.

Purchased by the India Office Library in 1924, this striking group portrait features Major William Palmer, Bengal Artillery (1740-1816), with his wife, Bibi Faiz Bakhsh ‘Faiz-un-Nisa’ Begum (died 1828), on his right and her sister Nur Begum on his left. His children in order of age are William (baptised 20 March 1782), Mary (b. 1783), Hastings (baptised 27 December 1785). Three women attendants complete the group. Major Palmer wears a red military coat and yellow waistcoat and the women and children are wearing cream dresses. They are seated on a red carpet in a courtyard with palm and plantain trees.

Palmer was ADC to Warren Hastings in 1774 and Military Secretary between 1776 and 1785. He was at the Lucknow court at various times between 1782 and 1785 as Hastings’ confidential agent for the extraction of loans from the Nawab and to report on the Residents Middleton and Bristow and their staff, and acting Resident after their departure. He left Lucknow in July 1785, and was in 1786 appointed by Cornwallis to be Resident at Sindhia’s court, where he remained until 1798, and at the Peshwa’s court in Poona 1798-1801. He afterwards commanded the 4th Native Infantry until his death at Berhampore in 1816. His will describes his wife as ‘his devoted companion of more than 30 years’.

This unfinished painting had long been attributed to Johann Zoffany (1733-1810), but was in the 1970s reattributed to Francesco Renaldi. (1755-c.1799). Of Italian descent, Renaldi lived in England and studied at the Royal Academy in 1776. He went to India and reached Calcutta in August 1786, remaining there until 1789 when he visited Dacca. From 1790-95 he worked in Lucknow and returned to Calcutta, leaving India in February 1796. However, the ages of the children, especially that of the infant Hastings in Faiz Bakhsh’s arms, who cannot be more than a few months old, strongly indicate that the painting cannot be as late as August 1786, and must therefore have been painted between Zoffany’s arrival back in Lucknow in April 1785, and Palmer’s departure in July for Calcutta. This would explain the unfinished state of the canvas.

Mildred Archer discusses the reattribution in ‘India and British Portraiture’ (London, 1979), 281-86, where she also states that the lady on Palmer's left is his second or Lucknow wife, on account of what she thinks is their intimacy, but the evidence for this is decidedly dubious (she is not for example actually leaning on Palmer's leg as Archer states - it is his own hand that is visible there). The lady in question is almost certainly Bibi Faiz Bakhsh’s sister Nur Begum, who subsequently married General Benoit de Boigne, Commandant in the army of the Maratha general Sindhia, and who left India in 1797. He abandoned this lady in England and remarried in France, while she under the name of Helen Bennet remained in Horsham, where she died and is buried. The eldest child in the painting is William Palmer, founder and head of the notorious Hyderabad firm of Palmer and Co. 

A previous posting on this remarkable manuscript, one of the British Library’s greatest treasures, introduced the volume and discussed a few of its pages. In this piece we discuss the inscriptions which it contains, beginning with the elaborate illuminated double-pages opening (folios 2v-3r) which contain the dedication of the manuscript to its patron.

The opening of Timur’s grandson Iskandar Sultan’s pocket miscellany containing 23 works. Copied 813-4/1410-11 (Add.27261, ff. 2v-3r)

The opening of Timur’s grandson Iskandar Sultan’s pocket miscellany containing 23 works. Copied 813-4/1410-11 (BL Add.27261, ff 2v-3r)
- See more at: http://britishlibrary.typepad.co.uk/asian-and-african/2014/03/the-miscellany-of-iskandar-sultan-add27261.html#sthash.UxOo0y4y.dpuf

The text in the upper and lower panels is written in an especially ornate version of floriated Kufic script (compare, for example, the much clearer decorative title headings for two poems, Kitāb Jām-i Jam (f. 420v) and Sa‘ādat-nāma (f. 504v). The text appears to consist of supplicatory phrases. The present writer has begun, but not completed, the struggle to decipher them. Perhaps some readers of this blog can do better, in which case we should be glad to hear from them. In any case, the contents complement the prayer in Arabic for the manuscript’s patron, Iskandar Sultan, inscribed in thulth script in the lobed circular central panel on the right hand page (f. 2v):

O God, perpetuate the rule of the most mighty Sultan, the most just and noble emperor, sovereign of the sovereigns of the Arabs and non-Arabs…

The continuation, in the panel on the left hand page (3r), reads:

…the Shadow of God upon all regions of the Earth, the Champion of Water and Clay [i.e. Defender of the Interests of Mankind], the Reliant [upon God], the Supreme King, Glory of the Nation and Faith [of Islam] Iskandar, may God make his dominion eternal.

Close up of (left) f. 3r and (right) f. 2v

Among the special ‘personal touches’ found elsewhere in the manuscript are the inscriptions half-concealed in the ornately illuminated margins of three pages: folios 343v, 344r, and 345r. All are in verse, and here they appear to be addressed to Iskandar Sultan, although that does not necessarily mean that they were originally composed for him; their authorship has yet to be established.

Folio 343v, which incidentally is featured (as are folios f. 2v and f. 3r) in the ‘Turning The Pages’ presentation of selected pages of this Miscellany, contains geometrical theorems from the first Book of Euclid’s Principles. Written in gold, half-hidden within the decorative cartouches ranged along the margins of this and the following page (f. 344r), are verses praising the manuscript's royal patron using imagery entirely appropriate to a bibliophile:

Add. 27261, f. 343v

Ay daftar-i iqbāl-rā naqsh-i ḥavāshī nām-i tū

bar lawḥ-i taqdīr az qaẓā nukḥustīn ḥarf kām-i tuDawlat ba-kilk-i ma‘dalat āyāt-i faẓl u makramat binvishta matn u ḥāshiya bar ṣaḥfa-’i ayyām-i tu.

O you whose name has been marked down
   in the margins of Success’s book!
Your will is, by the decree of Fate,
   the first letter on Destiny’s Tablet.
With the pen of Justice, Good Fortune
   wrote the signs of virtue and greatness
upon the page of these, your times,
   in both the text space and the margins.

The inscription contained within four cartouches in the margin of folio 344r is much easier to read:

Add. 27261, f. 344r

Nigīn-i sa‘ādat / ba-nām-i tū bād

Hama kār-i dawlat / ba-kām-i tū bād

May Fortune’s signet ring
    be [inscribed] with your name;
and all matters of state
    accord with your desire.

As if the preceding eulogies were not enough, they are followed by a still more flattering single bayt or couplet on f. 345r, together with the name ‘Alī in gold on blue, calligraphed in square Kufic.

Add. 27261, f. 345r
 


Ay az bihisht / tu juzvī / vaz raḥmat āyatī / Ḥaqq-rā ba-rūzgār-i / tū bā mā ‘ināyatī

You who are a part of Heaven, a portent of [Divine] Mercy;
in this your era, God [has shown His] favour and concern for us.

Let us now turn our attention to the various colophons in Add. 27261. The first of these occurs on f. 112v, at the end of Ilāhī-nāma (‘Book of the Divine), a didactic poem by the great mystical poet Farīd al-Dīn ‘Aṭṭār (d. ca. 1220). In it, one of the two calligraphers who worked on this Miscellany, Muḥammad al-Ḥalvā’ī, states that he finished copying the text in Jumādā l-avval (sic: normally in the feminine form Jumādā l-ūlā) 813, which month began on September 9th 1410. Here, as in another of his colophons (see below), which are in Arabic as convention dictates, this scribe employs phrases which show him to have been an admirer of the mystical Path and its people, and perhaps a Sufi himself.

Colophon in the margin at the end of ʻAṭṭār's Ilāhī-nāma (‘Book of the Divine), dated 813/1410. Add.27261, f. 112v
:

[This copy of] “The Book of the Divine”, by the Sultan of the Knowers and Lovers [of God], Protector of the Protégés of the Ancients and Moderns, the Unique One of the World and the Faith (Farīd al-Dunyā wa l-Dīn) Muḥammad known as ‘the Perfumer’ (‘Aṭṭār) – may God cool his resting-place, illumine his dwelling-place (mathwā), and make the Pool of Paradise his drinking-place (ma’rā) – was completed on Saturday 27th of Jumādā l-awwal 813. Praise is due to God alone, and God’s salutations and innumerable greetings be upon the Best of His Creation Muḥammad and his goodly, pure Family, one and all. By the hand of the weak and feeble servant, wholly reliant upon [God] the Eternally Self-Sufficient Sovereign: Muḥammad known as al-Ḥalvā’ī (‘The Sweetmeat Man’), may God improve his condition and put his mind at rest.

By contrast, the colophon written by al-Ḥalvā’ī on f. 294r at the end of Niẓāmī’s Khamsa (‘Five Poems’) is exiguous and looks as though it may have been composed and executed in haste. No acknowledgement to the Creator, salutations to the Prophet, or honorifics for the author; the scribe’s name is there, but has just been squeezed in at the end of a line:

End of the book known as the Khamsa of Niẓāmī. Written by Muḥammad, and [may Divine] forgiveness [be his], in Jumādā l-ūlā of the year 814’ (equivalent to late August-September 1411.

Another inscription of interest, which occurs on f. 302r, appears in the form of a flattering addition to what is announced as Niẓām al-tavārīkh, an abridgement and continuation of this short history of Persia from earliest times down to 674/1275 by ‘Abd Allāh al-Bayẓāvī. Immediately after a brief notice of the Mongol Īlkhān Abū Sa‘īd (d. 736/1335) we find this:

And [today, God’s] creatures are in the shade (sāya, repeated again on the next line) of the justice and the shadow of the compassion of the Just King…Jalāl al-Dunyā va l-Dīn Iskandar Bahādur, may God perpetuate his rule…’ (the remainder of the text resembling that of the prayer on f. 340r translated below).

The colophon (f. 340r) which concludes a selection of ghazals or lyric verses by several different poets, is almost as long as that on f. 112v and yet contains no date; in this respect the volume exhibits no standard style. In it we read:

The ghazals have been completed, with the help and goodly aid to success of God, Transcendent and Exalted is He. Salutations and peace be upon Muḥammad, the Best of His Creation, and his Pure Family. Written by the poor servant Muḥammad, scribe to the Majestic Sovereign Iskandar (al-kātib al-Jalālī al-Khāqānī al-Iskandarī), may God perpetuate his (i.e. the sovereign’s, not – as the syntax suggests – the scribe’s) kingship and establish his justice and beneficence throughout the universe, by the Prophet and his goodly descendants.

Colophon concluding a collection of ghazals. Add.27261, f 340r

After this point in the manuscript there are no further lengthy colophons. Whereas the opening of the more famous Manṭiq al-ṭayr and Ilāhī-nāma, found earlier in the volume, are marked only by episode headings, the poems Jām-i Jam and (part of) Sa‘ādat-nāma both have ornamental title headings. Neither of the latter, however, has any kind of inscription at the end. And although there remain some artistic pyrotechnics to come, as regards the textual content the Miscellany rather peters out. The last colophon (f. 542v) consists of two lines of text directly below the end of the treatise on astronomy with which the Miscellany concludes. Instead of being configured in the conventional keystone form, these two lines are written exactly as if they were part of the text. The first line announces the conclusion of of Rawẓat al-munajjimīn (‘Astronomers’ Garden’), while the second reads:

Katabahu turāb al-fuqarā’ va l-sālikāin Nāṣir al-Kātib, aḥsana Llāh ‘avāqibahu, fī salkh Jumādā l-sānī 814

Written by [one who is] dust [at the feet] of the dervishes and the [spiritual] wayfarers, Nāṣir the Scribe – may God grant him a goodly life Hereafter – at the end of Jumādā l-sānī 814 (equivalent to early October 1411).

Colophon at the end of Rawẓat al-munajjimīn (‘Astronomers’ Garden’), dated 814/1411. Add.27261, f. 542v

Lastly, there are two very different inscriptions which were added by later owners of the manuscript at the end of it. These have been described and discussed in the ‘Turning The Pages’ presentation of the Miscellany of Iskandar Sultan, together with a selection of 74 other pages.

A detailed catalogue description with links to the individual works and paintings can be read or downloaded here.

Muhammad Isa Waley, Asian and African Studies

Related articles

The Miscellany of Iskandar Sultan (Add.27261)

An illustrated 14th century Khamsah by Khvaju Kirmani

A jewel in the crown

Three interesting portraits on ivory of Mughal ladies of the imperial zenana were acquired by the Visual Arts section in 2012, now numbered Add.Or.5719-5721.  All three were mounted in one frame with pasted down inscriptions below relating to the subject and the artist, while attached to the back of the frame were three envelopes which once contained the miniatures and which were written further particulars.  The paintings were sold in Delhi in these envelopes in 1900 by Sultan Ahmad Khan, who styles himself the son of one painter Muhammad Fazl Khan and grandson of another painter Muhammad ‘Azim, both of whom are named as artists in the inscriptions.  The purchaser must have put them into their present gilt frame and fortunately also preserved the various inscriptions and attestations.  All three are supposed to be portraits of some of the wives of the Mughal Emperor Akbar II (r. 1806-37).  For a more correct appreciation of who they might be, we rely on that invaluable on-line resource, The Royal Ark.  None of these ladies’ names unfortunately appears among the numerous wives of Akbar II, but that does not necessarily detract from the validity of the inscriptions of artistic interest. 

A lady meant to be Shaukat Begum, perhaps the great-granddaughter of Akbar II.  By Muhammad ‘Azim, Delhi, c. 1840-50.  Watercolour on ivory.  106 x 85 mm.  British Library, Add.Or.5719

The first portrait is a half-length of a Mughal lady facing the viewer holding a rose and draped in a red Kashmiri shawl, standing on a terrace with a column and balustrade behind overlooking the trees of a garden.  It is inscribed on the front: Portrait of Shaukat Begum of the harem of Akbar II.  Painted by Mohammed Aizim.  Original picture guaranteed by his grandson Sultan Ahmed Khan.  And on the back: Original picture by Mahommad Aizim artist who died about 1850.  Picture of Shaukat Begum of the harem of Akbar II. Sold and guaranteed by Sultan Ahmed Khan son of Mohommud Fuzul Khan & grandson of Mahomud Aizim Delhi 25 Jan 1900.  The details of the guarantor are also noted in Urdu.  The naturalistic viewpoint and the general setting of the portrait are of course derived from British portraits of the early 19^th century which by this time had been seen in Delhi in considerable numbers.  What the Delhi artists contributed is their exquisite refinement of features and of details of clothing and jewellery.

There seems to be no Shaukat Begum listed among the wives of Akbar II.  However, Nawab Shaukat Sultan Begum Sahiba is listed as a daughter of Mirza Mahmud Shah, the second son of Mirza Babur (1796-1835), who was the seventh son of the Emperor Akbar II.  A very similar portrait on ivory but in an oval frame is in the V & A (IS.529-1950, Archer 1992, no. 259/7), where it is thought to be dated 1860-70, one of a set of portraits depicting Mughal ladies, all unfortunately without inscriptions.  For the artist, see below.

A lady meant to be Akhtar Mahal., one of the wives of Bahadur Shah Zafar.  By Muhammad Fazl, Delhi, c. 1850.  Watercolour on ivory.  Oval, 109 x 85 mm.  British Library, Add.Or.5720

The second of these images is an oval bust portrait of a lady holding a kitten.  Her loose hair is dressed in a rather European manner and she has no veil covering it.  It is inscribed on the front:  Portrait of Aktar Mahal Persian wife of Akbar.  Painted by Mahommed Faizul artist Delhi about 1825.  And on the back: Painted by Mahomed Fuzal portrait of Persian wife of Akbar [damage A]ktar Mahal.  Portrait is painted by Mohommed Faizal painter Delhi.  Zoolfkar Khan miniature painter Delhi [this last seems to be an attestation].  Nawab Akhtar Mahal Begum Sahiba is listed as the eighth wife of Akbar’s son and successor the Emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar (r. 1837-58), whom he married in 1847.  She was previously a concubine named Man Bai, which seems to be reflected here in her pose and attire.  Rather than the traditional format as seen in the other two portraits, the artist has been influenced by a more sentimental type of Victorian portrait.  Muhammad Fazl is not an artist about whose work anything is presently known.

A lady meant to be Sharafat al-Mahal, one of the wives of Bahadur Shah.  By Amir al-Din, c. 1850-60, after an original by Muhammad Fazl.  Watercolour on ivory.  87 x 68 mm.  British Library, Add.Or.5721

The third portrait is a half-length of a lady seated before a large cushion holding a necklace of pearls which she has taken from a jewel box.  Behind her are the standard curtain drape and the sky without an intervening balustrade.  It is inscribed in front:  Portrait of Asrafat Mahal wife of Akbar.  From original by Mahommed Faizul by his pupil Amiruddin.  And on the back: Picture of Ashrafat Mahal copy of original copied by Amiruddin pupil of Mahomed Fuzal son of Mahomud Aizim who died about 1850 [with the same guarantor’s details in English and in Urdu as Add.Or.5719 above].  A Nawab Sharafat al-Mahal Begum Sahiba [Moti Begum], a Sayyidani, is listed as the third wife of the Emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar.  She was the mother of Mirza Mughal (1817-57), one of Bahadur Shah’s sons most active in the events of 1857 and who was one of the princes shot by Major Hodson on 22 September 1857.  Again the artist’s name is unknown.

Delhi artists in the first half of the 19^th century were catering to a voyeuristic market and many imperial Mughal ladies from Nur Jahan onwards had iconographies set by these artists in this period.  Their features scarcely change from lady to lady – here Shaukat Begum and Sharafat Mahal look very alike with their pale oval faces, long dark hair and similar eyes, noses and mouths – and these features were also used for portraits meant to be of Mumtaz Mahal, Akbar II’s favourite wife and mother of his favourite son Mirza Jahangir, and were continued in portraits meant to be of Zinat Mahal, the favourite wife of the Emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar (r. 1837-58).  Earlier Mughal ladies were also given the same treatment – see Archer 1992 pp. 218-23 for the many examples in the V&A.  Those in the India Office Library’s collections are listed in Archer 1972 (pp. 204-08).  Their numbers have been added to since then and will be the subjects of future blogs.

Sultan Ahmad Khan’s inscription in 1900 tells us that he was the son of the artist Muhammad Fazl Khan, whose name is not otherwise known, and the grandson of Muhammad ‘Azim, about whom we know a lot more.  Emily Eden met this artist when travelling with her brother the Governor-General Lord Auckland to Lahore in 1838-39.  On her return in 1839 with her sketchbook full of portraits of the Sikhs she had met at Lahore, she records:  ‘I have had two Delhi miniature painters here translating two of my sketches into ivory, and I never saw anything so perfect as their copy of Runjeet Singh.  Azim, the best painter, is almost a genius;  except that he knows no perspective, so that he can only copy.  He is quite mad about some of my sketches, and as all miniatures of well-known characters sell well, he was determined to get hold of my book’ (Eden 1866, vol. 2, pp. 73-74).  The other painter is Jivan Ram, some of whose work in both oils on canvas and watercolour on ivory has surfaced in recent years and is the subject of a previous blog post and also of a forthcoming article by the present writer.

Miss Eden’s ‘Azim’ is possibly the same as the artist Shaikh ‘Azim, who produced a portrait on ivory of Kate Ford taken on the occasion of her marriage in 1845, and acquired in 2009.  It is inscribed on a backing sheet in English:  ‘Kate Ford. Taken by Sheikh Azim, Delhi, Nov. 13th 1845’; and in faint Persian in red:  kamtarin-i Shaykh ‘Azim musavvir sakin-i Dihli (‘the insignificant Shaykh ‘Azim the painter, resident of Delhi’).  The sitter is Catherine Margaret Ford, daughter of Major-General John Anthony Hodgson (1777-1848), Bengal Army 1800-48, and Surveyor-General of India.  Born in 1823, she was married in Delhi in 1845 to William Ford (1821-1905), Bengal Civil Service 1843-69.  She is seated dressed in a low cut dark blue gown with a Kashmir shawl draped around her.  Her hair is looped in front of her ears in the early Victorian fashion.  A vase of flowers stands on a table behind her.  All this is in the latest taste for female portraiture.

Mrs Catherine Ford, née Hodgson (b. 1823).  By Shaikh ‘Azim, Delhi. 1845.  Watercolour on ivory.  85 x 70mm.  British Library, Add.Or.5641.

This portrait is in a very different style and although Delhi artists were able to change their style at will to suit their patron’s taste, it is possible that it is by a different artist.  There were several artists with similar names working in 19^th century India and further inscriptions need to be discovered on other paintings to verify or disprove this identity.

J.P. Losty
Curator of Visual Arts, Emeritus

Further Reading:

Archer, M., Company Drawings in the India Office Library, HMSO, London, 1972

Archer, M., Company Paintings:  Indian Paintings of the British Period, Victoria and Albert Museum, London, 1992

Eden, Emily, Up the Country: Letters written to her Sister from the Upper Provinces of India, London, 1866

Losty, J.P., ‘Raja Jivan Ram:  a Professional Indian Portrait Painter of the Early Nineteenth Century’, in Electronic BLJ, forthcoming

http://britishlibrary.typepad.co.uk/asian-and-african/2014/01/a-new-portrait-miniature-by-jivan-ram-acquired.html

http://www.royalark.net/India4/delhi19.htm

In a previous blog (Fashion in 14th century Mosul) we wrote about three leaves loaned to an exhibition at the Courtauld Gallery in London from the British Library's copy (Or.14140) of the Arabic treatise ‘Ajā’ib al-makhlūqāt wa-gharā’ib al-mawjūdāt (عجائب المخلوقات وغرائب الموجودات), an encyclopaedic work on cosmology, generally referred to as Wonders of Creation, by Zakarīyā ibn Muḥammad al-Qazwīnī (c. 1203-83). This is the first work to deal with this subject in an exhaustive and systematic way in the Islamic world; it enjoyed great popularity and was translated into Persian and Turkish.

Fabulous giant bird illustrating the story of the how the man from Isfahan was rescued from a desert island and carried to safety by clinging to the bird's leg  (Or.14140, f. 39r)

I am delighted to announce that all 135 folios of Or.14140, containing 368 miniature paintings, have now been uploaded to the Qatar Digital Library, a project of the British Library Qatar Foundation Partnership to digitise the British Library’s Arabic scientific manuscripts (see Arabic scientific manuscripts go live in Qatar Digital Library).


ʻAmr ibn al-ʻĀs, conqueror of Egypt in AD 640-42, advises on how to restore the waters of the river Nile. The brick structure in the water is a Nilometer, a device for measuring the water flow in the flood season (Or.14140, f. 62v)

There are very few early Arabic copies of this text, and this manuscript is thought to have been produced in Mosul at the very beginning of the 14^th century. According to the undated colophon, it was copied from a manuscript copied by the author himself. The British Library purchased it from a London dealer in 1983. Originally, when the manuscript was produced in the 14^th century, it was a bound codex. When it came into the library the manuscript had lost its binding, and the leaves were in such a bad condition that each one required extensive conservation. Each leaf was painstakingly conserved, individually encased in plastic sheeting and framed in a card mount. It is now stored in eight boxes. It took a dedicated conservator almost four years to complete this project. Although it is now mounted in separate frames, its original codex format is preserved in the digital version which can be read from beginning to end in one sequence.

Once it was in a fit condition for study, Dr Stefano Carboni was able to conduct exhaustive research of the manuscript’s artistic contents. He identified the subject matter of each painting, and placed the manuscript within the art historical traditions of its age.  His descriptions are available in his thesis and are due to be published as a book in 2015 (see Further reading).

King Solomon sitting on his throne surrounded by Jinns with angels above (Or.14140, f. 100r)

This treasure of the British Library’s Arabic manuscript collection, also known as the London Qazwīnī, is best known for its miniature paintings. Covering a wide range of subjects, including such things as wildlife, plants, legendary beasts, mythical figures and daily life, the illustrations show influence from Byzantine painting traditions and display aspects of fourteenth-century costume and architecture. The manuscript is also a fascinating source for historians of Islamic art, and folios are often requested for exhibitions in the UK and abroad. Now you don’t need to wait for an exhibition to see this fantastic manuscript.

Further reading

Stefano Carboni, “The London Qazwini: An Early 14th Century Copy of the ʿAjāʾib al-makhlūqāt,” Islamic Art: An Annual Dedicated to the Art and Culture of the Muslim World 3, 1988-89, pp. 15-31.
—, “The Wonders of Creation and the Singularities of Ilkhanid Painting: A Study of the London Qazwini British Library Ms. Or. 14140,” Ph.D. diss., School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, 1992. Download free from British Library Electronic Theses Online Services (ETHoS).
—, The 'Wonders of Creation': a Study of the Ilkhanid 'London Qazwini', Edinburgh, Edinburgh University Press, 2015.

Colin F. Baker, Lead Curator, Middle Eastern Studies

Related articles

Arabic scientific manuscripts go live in Qatar Digital Library

Fashion in 14th century Mosul: a new exhibition at the Courtauld Gallery

The BP exhibition Ming: 50 years that changed China runs at the British Museum until 5 January 2015. The exhibition focuses on the years 1400-1450 when the Chinese empire reached a peak in its cultural and artistic production.  At the same time trade and exchange with other lands also flourished and the impact of Chinese culture was widely felt across Asia. 

By the time of the Ming Dynasty the interaction between China and Japan was already an ancient one.  For more than eight centuries official trade and diplomatic embassies had taken place between the two countries and many aspects of Japanese government, religion, philosophy, art and literature had been influenced by contacts with China.

Among the British Library items loaned to the British Museum’s Ming exhibition is Shūbun inryaku 聚分韻略, a rhyme dictionary to aid in the composition of Chinese poetry.  It was compiled by the celebrated monk-poet Shiren 師錬 (1278-1346), also known as Kokan 虎関, who resided at the Nanzenji 南禅寺 in Kyoto, the leading temple of the Rinzai School of Zen Buddhism.

The work has a preface by the compiler dated Kagen 4 [1306] and a postscript dated Tokuji 2 [1307].  The British Library’s copy belongs to an edition printed at the Reigen’an 霊源菴, part of the Tōfukuji 東福寺, a Zen temple in Kyoto, in Ōei 19 [1412].  This is the earliest dated edition of the work although copies survive of two undated but possibly earlier editions and a version of the work may have been published during the lifetime of the compiler (ie. pre-1346)[1].

End of preface of Shūbun inryaku , showing the date Kagen 4 嘉元丙午 [1306] and the name of the compiler Kokan Shiren 虎関師錬 (British Library Or.72.g.20 f. 6v-7r)

The use of Chinese characters or kanji 漢字 (literally ‘Han script’) was introduced to Japan in the fifth century and initially the Chinese language was the medium of written communication.  Later, systems were developed for representing the sounds and grammatical structures of the Japanese language:  man’yōgana, hiragana and katakana – all of which were based on Chinese characters.

Composition of Chinese poetry (kanshi 漢詩) was a popular pastime among the Japanese elite and the earliest anthology, the Kaifūsō 懐風藻 ‘Fond Recollections of Poetry’ was compiled in 751. It includes 120 poems by 64 different poets, many of them members of the Imperial Family or high-ranking courtiers.

The Shūbun inryaku is one of the earliest Japanese examples of insho (Chinese:yun shu 韻書, dictionaries of Chinese characters arranged according to rhyme and tone to assist in the composition of classical Chinese poetry.  Standard kanji dictionaries are organised according to a system of radicals reflecting the component parts of the individual character.  In Chinese rhyme dictionaries, the characters were first arranged by tone and then each of the four tones was divided into rhyme groups (Japanese: in, Chinese: yun ), traditionally named after the first character of the group.

The beginning of the Shūbun inryaku showing the first rhyme group headed by the character 東 (east).  The copious handwritten annotations in black and red show that this was a well-used reference work (British Library Or.72.g.20 f. 8v)

The compiler of the Shūbun inryaku, Shiren, entered holy order on Mt Hiei in 1287 at the age of 9.  In addition to Buddhism he also studied Chinese language and classics from the age of 17 and learned calligraphy from the famous Chinese monk Yishan Yining 一山 一寧 (1247-1317).  He rose through the Buddhist hierarchy to become abbot of the Tōfukuji and Nanzenji temples and in 1342 was accorded the eminent title of Kokushi 国師 ‘National Master’ by Emperor Go-Murakami, being subsequently known as Honkaku Kokushi 本覚国師.  In addition to an anthology of poetry called the Saihokushū 済北集, Shiren also wrote the Genkō Shakusho 元亨釈書, a 30-volume work completed in 1322 which is the oldest history of Buddhism in Japan, and Butsugo shinron 仏語心論, a treatise on the Laṅkāvatāra Sūtra.

The growing importance of Zen Buddhism in Japan during the Kamakura (1185-1333) and Muromachi (1333-1573) Eras led to a renewed interest in Chinese culture.  Many Zen monks composed poetry and prose in Chinese and these works have come to be known collectively as Gozan bungaku 五山文学 or ‘Literature of the Five Mountains’.

The term ‘Five Mountains’ refers to the principal Rinzai temples - five in Kyoto and five in Kamakura  -which were both protected and controlled by the shogunate.  The system underwent a number of revisions until 1386 when the designated temples were the Tenryūji 天龍寺, Shōkokuji 相国寺, Kenninji 建仁寺, Tōfukuji 東福寺 and Manjuji 萬壽寺 in Kyoto and the Kenchōji 建長寺, Engakuji 円覚寺, Jufukuji 壽福寺, Jōchiji 浄智寺 and Jōmyōji 浄妙寺 in Kamakura.  The Nanzenji occupied a pre-eminent position above all 10.

The Gozan temples were the focus of printing activity in Japan during the 14^th and 15^th centuries when many Chinese works were reprinted.  Collectively these books are referred to as Gozan-ban or ‘Five Mountain Editions’.  Over 400 different works have been identified, the majority relating to Zen and other Buddhist sects.  However, 100 are non-Buddhist including Confucian texts and literary works.  They have a distinctly Chinese style since they were often reprints of Song or Yuan Dynasty editions or, in the 14^th century at least, because the woodblocks from which they were printed had been carved by Chinese blockcutters who had crossed to Japan.  The British Library has some 30 Gozan-ban in its Japanese collection.  One of these, an edition of the Rongo 論語 or ‘Analects of Confucius’ (British Library ORB.30/171), printed c.1390-1450 is also included in the British Museum’s Ming exhibition.

Title page of Rongo 論語 or ‘Analects of Confucius’, printed c.1390-1450, showing handwritten Japanese glosses and marginal notes as well as the seals of previous owners (British Library ORB.30/171)

Kunshin koji 君臣故事 ‘Moral stories for sovereigns and subjects’, a guide to Confucian behaviour and one of the few illustrated Gozan-ban. c.1370 (British Library ORB.30/196)

Most of the British Library’s Gozan works, including the Shūbun inryaku, Rongo and Kunshin koji illustrated above, were acquired by the British Museum Library in 1884-1885 as part of the collection of the diplomat and bibliophile Ernest Mason Satow (1843-1929).

Ming: 50 years that changed China is open at the British Museum until 5 January 2015.


Select bibliography

Carpenter Bruce E., 'Priest-Poets of the Five Mountains in Medieval Japan', in Tezukayama Daigaku ronshū, no. 16, 1977, Nara, Japan, pp. 1-11.

Gardner, Kenneth B, Descriptive catalogue of Japanese books in the British Library printed before 1700. London and Tenri, 1993.

Kawase, Kazuma, Kojisho no kenkyū 古辞書の研究. Tokyo 1955, revised edition 2007

Todd, Hamish A., ‘The Satow Collection of Japanese Books in the British Library: its History and Significance’ in Daiei Toshokan shozō Chōsenbon oyobi Nihon kosho no bunkengakuteki gogakuteki kenkyū  大英圖書館所蔵朝鮮本及び日本古書の文獻學的・語學的研究.  Toyama University, 2007)

Ury, Marian, Poems of the Five Mountains: An Introduction to the Literature of the Zen Monasteries, Michigan Monograph Series in Japanese Studies, No 10, 1992.

Hamish Todd, Asian and African Studies

Related articles

Two Persian ‘Ming’ manuscripts on view at the British Museum

Three volumes of the Yongle Dadian now on display at the British Museum

The English novelist and noted bibliophile William Beckford is highlighted in the British Library’s current exhibition ‘Terror and Wonder: the Gothic Imagination’. Exhibition curators (Greg Buzwell, Tanya Kirk and Tim Pye) feature Beckford’s Gothic novel Vathek as one of the earliest examples in this style. Beckford’s masterpiece expressed the ‘orientalist vision of hell’ and Beckford achieved this by combining ‘the fantastical, the perverse and the demonic to produce a remarkable Gothic novel’.


William Beckford by Sir Joshua Reynolds
Oil on canvas, 1782. National Portrait Gallery, NPG 5340

Visitors to the exhibition and readers of this blog may be interested to learn that Beckford (1760-1844) was an avid collector of prints, drawings, paintings and travel accounts relating to the Indian subcontinent and China. In fact, after Beckford’s first edition of Vathek was printed in 1786, he acquired an extensive collection of albums of Indian miniature paintings from the collection of the Swiss mercenary Antoine-Louis Henri Polier (1741-95), who was employed by the East India Company. Allegedly, the acquisition was arranged through the artist Vincent Brandoin, a friend to both Beckford and Polier, possibly around the time of Polier’s death. Lucian Harris, who researched the history of Beckford’s collection of Indian paintings, suggests that Beckford’s ‘albums of Indian miniatures probably constituted the largest body of such material in private ownership in Britain in the early nineteenth century’ and by 1819 ‘he owned about twenty-three or twenty-four albums of Indian material’.

Reputed to be one of the wealthiest men in England after inheriting a fortune at the age of ten, he amassed one of the greatest collections of art and books. Due to financial difficulties relating to his plantations in Jamaica, a major part of his library at Fonthill Abbey was disposed at auction between the years 1807-1823.  At the sale of 6 May 1817, the highest price paid for a single lot was obtained for the two volumes of miniatures ‘representing the system of Indian Mythology’, from the personal collection of Colonel A. L. H. de Polier, £267.15s0d’ (Gemmett 1972, p. 52). These albums changed hands several times, purchased by Beckford’s solicitor Mr. White in 1817 and later sold by a Mr. G. Baumgartner in 1894 to the British Museum (see Losty 1982, p. 150).

An opening from Volume 1 on Hindu mythology showing Varaha the boar avatar, bearing on the tip of his tusk the Earth depicted as a cone containing mountains and sky with the goddess within it, the demon Hiranyaksa lying supine below, his arms cut off. Lucknow, c. 1780. British Library, Or.4769, f. 11

Antoine Polier is one of the most significant patrons of late Mughal painting in the 18^th century in northern India. In 1773, Polier was assigned by the Company to the court of Navab Shuja al-Daula of Avadh serving as the chief engineer and architect. In the town of Faizabad, Polier established a small studio of artists who worked at his residence. According to Polier’s letters at the Bibliothèque nationale de France, the studio was led by the painter Mihr Chand and supported by two other junior artists, whose names have yet to be corroborated with artistic evidence. Mihr Chand and his colleagues were commissioned to paint portraits of the provincial governor Navab Shuja al-Daula, portraits of Mughal emperors, topographical views of Agra, Kashmir and Delhi, as well as copies of seventheenth century Mughal and Deccani paintings acquired by the French mercenary and Faizabad resident Jean-Baptiste Gentil. Between 1773-86, the studio assembled at least fifteen albums of paintings featuring early Mughal and Deccani paintings purchased by Polier and the new commissions. An example of Mihr Chand's style is featured below.

Portrait of Asaf al-Daula, Navab of Avadh by Mihr Chand, 1773-75. British Library, Add.Or.4390

Antoine Polier also commissioned the two volumes on Hindu mythology (mentioned above) between 1773-86. Each volume (British Library Or.4769 and Or.4770) contains 32 folios with miniature paintings surrounded by decorative floral borders. The floral borders are consistent with other albums prepared for Polier. Inside the first volume (Or.4769), there are 9 pages of text by Polier describing each of the paintings and entitled ‘Explanation of the drawings of Hindu Mythology’. These two volumes have significant art historical value as they cast light on Polier’s personal interest in the subject and his role as patron. None of the other albums that were commissioned by Polier include such detailed notes on the individual works. Nor is such information included in Polier's correspondence.

Polier's notes inside the first volume on Hindu mythology, British Library, Or.4679.

In viewing the paintings in the Hindu mythology volumes, it is immediately evident that these are incongruous to the style of paintings by Mihr Chand included in Polier’s albums. While the subject matter and delineation of the figures are traditional, the background landscapes are more simplistic; pale washes of colour are used to represent the sky or ground. Additionally, a formulaic approach is taken to casting shadows; thin dark shadows are drawn projecting behind figures. The overall compositional format is suggestive of European intervention. Although none of the paintings are signed and are by at least two different artists, they are stylistically similar to other paintings produced in Lucknow in the 1780s (see works commissioned by Richard Johnson).


Karma, standing four armed, haloed, bearing conch, discus, lotus and club, purple in colour with yellow dhoti and gold ornaments.  Lucknow, c. 1780. British Library, Or.4769, f.2.

It is rather curious that William Beckford opted to sell these two volumes on Hindu mythology in 1817 while keeping many of the others. Although the contents of Beckford's library at Fonthill Abbey were up for sale over the years, the finest albums he acquired through Polier's collection were never sold. After his death in 1844, the albums were transferred to his daughter Susan, the Duchess of Hamilton, and kept at Hamilton Palace Library (Scotland). In 1882, the twelfth Duke of Hamilton privately sold twenty albums of Indian miniatures (along with other contents of the library) to the Kupferstichkabinett in Berlin. Today, the Polier-Beckford-Hamilton albums can be viewed in the Museum for Islamic Art in Berlin. The two Polier-Beckford albums on Hindu mythology are kept in the British Library.

On a side note, William Beckford's Gothic revival country house Fontill Abbey which was demolished in 1846, is now featured in a video game - which allows gamers to explore the country house through an underwater journey. Perhaps this may be of interest to readers and Beckford fans.

Further reading:

Alam, M. and Alavi, S. (ed). A European Experience of the Mughal Orient: The I'jaz-i Arsalani (Persian Letters, 1773-1779) of Antoine-Louis-Henri Polier, Oxford University Press, Oxford & New Delhi, 2001.

Gemmett, R.J. (ed). Sale Catalogues of Emminent Persons, Volume 3, Sotheby Parke-Bernet, London, 1972.

Gemmett, R. J. (ed). The Consummate Collector: William Beckford's Letters to His Bookseller, Michael Russell Publishing, Norwich, 2000.

Harris, L. 'Archibald Swinton: A New Source of Albums of Indian Miniatures in William Beckford's Collection, The Burlington Magazine, Vol. 143, No. 1179, (June 2001), pp. 360-366.

Harris, L.  British collecting of Indian art and artifacts in the 18th and early 19th centuries (University of Sussex, 2002)

Losty, J.P., The Art of the Book in India, British Library, London, 1982.

Roy, M., "Origins of the late Mughal painting tradition in Awadh" in Markel and Gude, India's Fabled City: The Art of Courtly Lucknow, Prestel, 2010.

Roy, M., 'Some Unexpected Sources for the Paintings by the Artist Mihr Chand, son of Ganga Ram', South Asian Studies, Vol. 26: 1 (2010) pp. 21 — 29.

Malini Roy
Visual Arts Curator 

In 1906, the Government of India Foreign Department published (and republished in 1910) an index of prominent Qajar statesmen, compiled by George Percy Churchill, Oriental Secretary at the British Legation in Tehran. According to Cyrus Ghani, this collection of notes and genealogical tables, entitled Biographical Notices of Persian Statesmen and Notables, is the only document of its kind and serves an ‘indispensible source to ascertain who the British held in high regard and who they considered to be pro-Russian or independent’ (Ghani, pp. 78-79). Indeed, the importance of the work is attested to by numerous references in monographs and in entries in, for example, the invaluable reference tool Encyclopædia Iranica.

Left: 'Biographical Notes' (British Library, IOR/R/15/1/746)
Right: 'Biographical Notices of Persian Statesmen and Notables', 1910 (British Library, IOR/L/PS/20/227)

Copies of the Biographical Notices are available in the records of the India Office and Foreign Office held at the British Library and National Archives respectively. Only three further copies appear to be held in libraries at Bamberg, Cambridge and Canberra, though a 1990 translation into Persian is more widely available (Mīrzā Ṣāliḥ, 1990).

Churchill’s Draft Text
However, a little-known manuscript draft of the Biographical Notices exists in the archive of the Bushire Residency, a part of the India Office Records (‘Biographical Notes’, IOR/R/15/1/746), and is now digitised and available online.

Manuscript note in 'Biographical Notes' (British Library, IOR/R/15/1/746, f. 3v)

In a signed note (f. 3v), Churchill remarks that he compiled his work from a variety of sources, in particular from Lieutenant-Colonel H. Picot’s, Biographical Notices of Members of the Royal Family, Notables, Merchants and Clergy (1897), which he endeavoured to update and amplify. The draft has the appearance and feel of a scrap-book, with cut-outs of entries from Picot’s work and other printed reports, juxtaposed with up-to-date information written in Churchill’s own hand, as well as seal impressions, signatures, photographs and other elements pasted in.

'Tree of the Royal Kajar House' (British Library, IOR/R/15/1/746, ff. 28v-29r)

In addition to the biographical entries, the draft includes an impressive hand-written genealogical ‘Tree of the Royal Kajar House’ (ff. 28v-29r); a list of words used in the composition of Persian titles (ff. 4r-5v); a list of Persian ministers, provincial governors and others receiving Nowruz greetings in 1904 (ff. 33v-34r); and a list of the principal of Persian diplomatic and consular representatives (ff. 30v-31r). Appearing on folios 32v-33r, quite incidentally with notes written on the back, is a seating plan for a dinner of the Omar Kháyyám Club on 23 November 1905.

Seating plan for the Omar Khayyam Club Dinner, 23 November 1905 (British Library, IOR/R/15/1/746, ff 32v-33r)

An Abundance of Seals
What stands out most in Churchill’s draft is the abundance of seal impressions – over 300 of them –  that appear to have been cut out from Persian correspondence and envelopes. These appear next to the biographical entry of the seal owner, and, in some cases, a single entry is accompanied by multiple seal impressions reflecting the use of different seal matrices at different dates and containing personal names or official and honorific titles. In addition, there are three clusters of seal impressions that are not associated with specific biographical entries, and these include seals of Qajar rulers, such as Fath ‘Ali Shah (r. 1797-1834) and Muhammad Shah (r. 1834-1848), as well as other Qajar statesmen.

Draft entry and print entry for Arfa' ud-Daulah (British Library, IOR/R/15/1/746, f. 66v; IOR/L/PS/20/227, p. 10)

Entry for  Mirza ʻAli Asghar Khan Amin us-Sultan in 'Biographical Notes' (British Library, IOR/R/15/1/746, f. 55r)

Seals Set within Illuminated Frames
Two clusters of seal impressions on folios 2v and 29v contain three examples of seals set in ornately decorated illuminated frames that have been cut out from firmans of Farmanfarma Husayn ‘Ali Mirza, Governor-General of Fars, dated 1229 AH (1813/14 CE). This art form developed in Iran during the later Safavid and Qajar eras, spreading throughout the Islamic world. Annabel Gallop and Venetia Porter note such illuminated framed seals with ‘their own architectural constructs’ or else ‘nestling within a bed of petals, sitting at the heart of a golden flame or sending forth rainbow-hued rays’ (pp. 170-172).

Seal impressions on folios 2v (left) and 29v (right) from 'Biographical Notes' (British Library, IOR/R/15/1/746)

Embossed Seals and Printed Stationery
The other cluster of cut-outs found on folio 3r are in fact not ink seal impressions, but impressions of embossed (blind-stamped) seals and decorative printed letterheads of specially-printed stationery. These are variously dated and include those of Amin al-Dawlah and Mas‘ud Mirza Zill al-Sultan, and contain decorative symbols such as laurel reefs, crowns, and the lion and sun national emblem (shir u khurshid).

A collection of embossed and printed seals in 'Biographical Notes' (British Library, IOR/R/15/1/746, f. 3r)

Embossed seals made with metal presses came into use in Europe in the latter part of the eighteenth century mainly among companies and institutions, but also by individuals. In the nineteenth century, this practice had become widespread in Ottoman bureaucracy. This collection, taken together with seal presses in museum collections in Iran (Jiddī, p. 75), demonstrates that the practice had become well-established in Qajar administration. Moreover, the embossed seals juxtaposed with traditional ink seal impressions in this volume point towards the ‘changing relations of production and advancing commercialization’ as a result of colonialism and globalisation that affected Islamic diplomatics in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries (Messick, pp. 234-235). Indeed, it has been noted that such embossed seals appeared at around the same time as other developments, such as the widening use of printed letterheads and rubber stamps (Gallop and Porter, p. 122).

Photographic Images
A number of the biographical entries are also accompanied by photographs of the subject in official dress. These are found on folio 48 for Mirza ‘Ali Asghar Khan Amin al-Sultan; two cut out photographs of Hakim al-Mulk Mirza Mahmud Khan and one of Hakim al-Mulk Ibrahim Khan on folio 114v; and one of Muzaffar al-Din Shah Qajar (r. 1896-1907) on folio 163v.

Photographs found in 'Biographical Notes' (British Library, IOR/R/15/1/746)

The Importance of Churchill’s Work
In one sense, Churchill’s work represents an important work in the context of British colonial knowledge of the political landscape of Qajar Iran at the beginning of the twentieth century. Yet, as has been noted by Gallop and Porter (p. 154), the presence of an abundance of seal impressions reflects the keen eye of an enthusiastic collector. However, we should not necessarily view collecting and colonial intelligence gathering as mutually exclusive fields. As Carol A. Breckenridge has noted: ‘The world of collecting was considerably expanded in the post-enlightenment era. With the emergence of the nineteenth-century nation-state and its imperializing and disciplinary bureaucracies, new levels of precision and organization were reached. The new order called for such agencies as archives, libraries, surveys, revenue bureaucracies, folklore and ethnographic agencies, censuses and museums. Thus, the collection of objects needs to be understood within the larger context of surveillance, recording, classifying and evaluating’ (p. 195-96).

Indeed, seal impressions were collectable not only as objects of Orientalist curiosity and research, but also as the preeminent symbol of personal and political authority, power and hierarchy, as well as ownership. Although Churchill’s collection of seal impressions was absent from the final printed version of the Biographical Notices, the draft text provides researchers with a valuable source for the study of Qajar seals and sealing practices at the turn of the twentieth century, at a time in which the Islamic seal was being replaced by other instruments of textual and visual authority, such as embossed seal and photographs.

Primary Sources
British Library: India Office Records and Private Papers, ‘Biographical Notes’, IOR/R/15/1/746
British Library: India Office Records and Private Papers, ‘Biographical notices of Persian statesmen and notables’, IOR/L/PS/20/227
British Library: India Office Records and Private Papers, ‘Persia: biographical notices of members of the royal family, notables, merchants and clergy’, Mss Eur F112/400
The National Archives (TNA), ‘PERSIA: Biographical Notices. Persian Statesmen and Notables’, FO 881/8777X and FO 881/9748X

Further Reading
Carol A. Breckenridge, ‘The Aesthetics and Politics of Colonial Collecting: India at the World Fairs’, Comparative Studies in Society and History, Vol. 31, No. 2 (April, 1989), pp. 195-216
Encyclopædia Iranica, online edition, New York, 1996-
Cyrus Ghani, Iran and the West: A Critical Bibliography (London: Kegan Paul International, 1987)
Annabel Teh Gallop and Venetia Porter, Lasting Impressions: Seals from the Islamic World (Kuala Lumpur, 2012)
Muḥammad Javād Jiddī (trans. M. T Faramarzi), Muhrhā-yi salṭanatī dar majmūʻah-i Mūzih-i Kākh-i Gulistān [Royal seals in Golestan Palace Museum collection] (Tihrān, 1390 [2011])
Brinkley Messick, Calligraphic State: Textual Domination and History in a Muslim Society (Berkley, 1993)
George Percy Churchill (trans. Ghulām Ḥusayn Mīrzā Ṣāliḥ), Farhang-i rijāl-i Qājār (Tihrān, 1369 [1990])

Daniel A. Lowe, Arabic Language and Gulf History Specialist (@dan_a_lowe)

The Serat Selarasa (MSS Jav. 28) is the most beautiful illuminated Javanese manuscript in the British Library. It is dated 1804, making it perhaps the earliest finely-illustrated Javanese manuscript known. The manuscript tells the story of Selarasa, prince of Champa, and his two brothers, who are forced to leave their kingdom after their elder brother becomes king and treats them with disdain. Selarasa and his brothers subsequently undergo many adventures and trials during their enforced travels.

Opening pages of the Javanese manuscript Serat Selarasa. British Library, MSS Jav.28, ff. 1v-2r.

The manuscript opens with a beautiful pair of symmetrical double illuminated frames reflecting an aesthetic common throughout the Islamic world. Thereafter, the 163 illustrated pages (out of a total of 295 pages of text in this manuscript of 148 folios) are rooted in the iconography of the Javanese shadow-puppet theatre (wayang kulit), with characters drawn in three-quarters profile, with angular shoulders and long thin jointed limbs. The more aristocratic a personage the more stylized their depiction, while servants from the lower classes are drawn more realistically, with rounded faces and bodies.

Prince Selarasa and his two brothers (on the right) pay respects to a holy man (in Islamic robes, with a turban and staff), and his daughter Ni Rumsari, who had dreamt that three handsome men would come to visit. Behind Ni Rumsari is her dark-skinned servant, Ni Jumunah, perhaps originating from eastern Indonesia. British Library, MSS Jav. 28, ff. 13v-14r.

Although the manuscript was illustrated by the same artist throughout, there is a different approach in the first part of the manuscript, in the seven illustrations up to f.19v.  In these initial pages, the pictures are larger and the characters range across the whole page, sometimes with ethereal pastel backgrounds, and clever use of framing devices.

Selarasa and his two brothers set sail from Champa in the middle of the night. They are caught in a storm for three days and three nights, before landing on the island of Nila. Note the Dutch flag flying from the ship; such anachronisms are common in Javanese manuscript art. British Library, MSS Jav.28, f.6r.

Prince Selarasa kneels before a holy man, Kiai Nur Sayid, who has stayed in one place for so long, neither eating nor drinking but smelling flowers and praying to God, that a vine has grown up around his body. The narrative power of the image is reinforced by enclosing the whole scene within a vine. British Library, MSS Jav.28, f. 8r.

Selarasa returns to his brothers, who had feared him lost, and they embrace. The holy man had plucked three hairs from Selarasa's head; they each place a hair on their stomachs and their hunger vanishes. Serat Selarasa, British Library, MSS Jav. 28, f. 10r.

There is a distinct change in later pages as shown below, where the illustrations are nearly always positioned much more conventionally along the bottom of the page, essentially on a single horizontal plane, reminiscent of the arrangement of shadow puppets on either side of the puppeteer’s screen. One wonders what caused this change of tempo: was it much easier for the scribe to plan on leaving regular gaps at the bottom of pages, rather than having to work so closely in tandem with the artist, and make allowances for irregular-shaped spaces on the page? It cannot have been for reasons of economy, for the  number of illustrations greatly increases through the manuscript: there are 23 illustrations on the first fifty folios, 59 on the next fifty, and 81 on the final third of the book.


On the left, asleep in bed, is the ferocious Raja of Mendunga island; on the right, Selarasa glimpses the Raja's beautiful younger sister, Puteri Ratna Pangrungu, and falls in love with her. British Library, MSS Jav.28, ff. 48v-49r.

According to a note in the text, this manuscript was once owned by the wife of a Dutch East India Company official in Surabaya. This was probably F.J. Rothenbühler, from whom Col. Colin Mackenzie of the East India Company received this manuscript in 1812.  Mackenzie evidently had a special interest in this manuscript, for amongst his private papers is a complete English translation of the Serat Selarasa (British Library, Mackenzie 1822, vol.28, pp.1-152), on the basis of which the scenes above have been described. Mackenzie, who served under Thomas Stamford Raffles during the British administration of Java (1811-1816), owned a large collection of Javanese manuscripts, including many taken from the Palace of Yogyakarta after it was attacked by the British in June 1812, and these are now in the British Library.

The manuscript of Serat Selarasa has long been appreciated for its exceptional artistry. Along with a selection of royal letters and other manuscripts, it travelled to Indonesia in 1991 for display in the exhibition 'Golden Letters: Writing Traditions of Indonesia', held at the National Library in Jakarta and at the Palace (Kraton) of Yogyakarta. Serat Selarasa was also the first of three Javanese manuscripts in the British Library to be digitised, along with two other finely illuminated manuscripts, Serat Damar Wulan (MSS Jav. 89) and Serat Jaya Lengkara Wulang (MSS Jav. 24). Digital copies of all three manuscripts have been presented to the Regional Library and Archives Board of the Special District of Yogyakarta (Badan Perpustakaan dan Arsip Daerah DIY). During a visit to Yogyakarta last week to speak at the 'Seminar on the treasury of Yogyakarta archives from the time of Thomas Stamford Raffles', I spoke about the British Library’s digitisation programme and how we hope soon to digitise more Javanese manuscripts, especially those originating from the royal library of Yogyakarta, in order to enhance access to these great treasures of Javanese culture.

Photo courtesy Tribun Jogja, 21 November 2014.

From left to right, historian Dr Peter Carey, expert on Javanese manuscripts and the British period in Java; ATG; panel chair Dr Abdul Wahid from the history department of Gadjah Mada University; Mr Budi Wibowo, head of the Regional Library and Archives Board of Yogyakarta.

Further reading:

Peter Carey, The British in Java 1811-1816: a Javanese account. A text edition, English synopsis and commentary on British Library Additional Manuscript 12330, Babad Bedhah ing Ngayogyakarta.  Oxford: published for the British Academy by Oxford University Press, 1992.

Annabel Teh Gallop with Bernard Arps, Golden letters: writing traditions of Indonesia / Surat emas: budaya tulis di Indonesia (London: British Library; Jakarta: Lontar, 1991), pp.88-89.

Annabel Teh Gallop
Lead Curator, Southeast Asia