Following the Seven Years War or, in India, the Third Carnatic War (1757-63), the Nawabs of Arcot (styled Walajah)—former dependents of the Nizam al-Mulk of Hyderabad—were confirmed as independent rulers of the Carnatic region of India (covering Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, and Telangana states) by the Mughal Emperor, Shah ‘Alam, in 1765. Fostering relations with European settlers establishing military outposts along the Coromandel Coast, at Pondicherry (Puducherry) and Madras (Chennai), for example, the nawabs became closely involved with the transactions and officials of the Honourable East India Company, the British parliament, and even members of the Hanoverian royal family. The character and extent of these relations is reflected in the record of correspondence, treaties, and legal documents of the time. The British Library has inherited from the India Office Library a small collection of such correspondence, consisting of 12 letters in Persian (the official and literary language of the Mughal state), from which a small selection is described here. These were described by M.Z.A. Shakeb in 1982 in a short catalogue which has long been unavailable. A PDF version can be downloaded here.
Aquatint based on a picture by Francis Swain Ward (1736-1794) of the mosque adjoining the palace of the Nawab of Arcot at Tiruchchirappalli, Tamil Nadu. Plate 1 from 24 Views in Indostan by William Orme, 1803 (British Library X768/2/1)
The letters written by or issued in the name of the nawabs are on thin oriental paper and are unified as a group by a number of common features: 1) the narrow, vertically elongated scroll format; 2) the placement of ruled panels of text in the lower left corner leaving broad margins along the upper and right edges; 3) floral motifs in gold; 4) 2 separate cartouches for a short invocation followed by the fuller quotation of the koranic basmalah (Qur’an, XXVII:30); and 5) fine flecks of gold (zar afshani) within cartouches and panels of text.
Letter written in 1801 from ʿAzim al-Dawlah, Nawab Walajah III, addressed to King George III (British Library IO Islamic 4359)
The first of these letters, IO Islamic 4359, is distinguished by broad margins covered in opaque gold wash surrounding the ruled panel of text. In keeping with conventions borrowed from imperial ordinances (farmans), this opulent effect is commensurate with the importance of the letter’s addressee, George III, described as
King of Great Britain, France, and Ireland, Defender of the Christian faith, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg (Hanover), Chancellor and Prince-Elector of the Holy Roman Empire, Emperor of the Oceans, etc…
Written in an uneven Indian ta‘liq hand by the third nawab, ‘Azim al-Dawlah, the letter announces the death of the second nawab, ‘Umdat al-Umara, on 15 July 1801, and confirms his own accession with the aid of the East India Company.
Letter written in 1801 from ‘Azim al-Dawlah, Nawab Walajah III, addressed to the Prince of Wales (British Library IO Islamic 4361)
The designs of letters communicating with other members of the British royal family are less opulent, but no less attractive, with repeated floral motifs in diaper arrangement, loosely painted in gold. The contents of letter IO Islamic 4361 are similar in tenor. Written again by the same nawab, this time in a more legible hand, it additionally requests the intercession of the Prince of Wales (George Augustus Frederick, later Prince-Regent, later King George IV) with his father, the king.
Letter written in 1816 from ‘Azim al-Dawlah, Nawab Walajah III, addressed to the Directors of the East India Company congratulating them on the marriage of Princess Charlotte to Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld (British Library IO Islamic 4252)
Following a similar design scheme, the letter IO Islamic 4252 addresses this time officials of the East India Company. Commencing with a reference to the Battle of Waterloo (1815), the letter congratulates British forces on their ‘great victory’ in Europe (referred to here as vilayat) before going on to express pleasure at news of the marriage of the Prince-Regent’s daughter, Charlotte Augusta, Princess of Wales, to Prince Leopold Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld, Duke of Saxony (later Léopold I, King of the Belgians), in 1816. The primary object of this letter is set out in the final few lines: to remind the Prince-Regent of his neglect in replying to earlier petitions, whereas the king did favour the nawab with a reply.
While other letters were written in the nawab’s own hand, this letter is written in a neat nasta‘liq hand by a practiced scribe. That its transcription was supervised by the nawab himself is indicated by the addition at the end of the text (bottom left corner) of the bold and stylised word, bayaz (fair copy), thus validating the letter’s authenticity.
Letter dated 14 Rabiʻ II 1216 (24 August 1801) from Nawab Walajah III’s uncle to the Chairman, Court of Directors, East India Company (British Library IO Islamic 4251)
Envelope with the seal of Anvar al-Dawlah Husam Jang Sayf al-Mulk Muhammad Anvar Khan Bahadur (British Library IO Islamic 4251)
Perhaps one of the least typical of this assemblage is the design and character of the letter IO Islamic 4251. Although lacking any ornamentation, defined panels and cartouches of text within rulings, and the narrow, elongated format seen in the previous 3 examples, it consists of 2 thin sheets of silver and gold-flecked paper (sim va zar afshan) covered on both sides in a densely-written nasta‘liq hand.
Written and composed by Muhammad Anvar Khan, brother of the second nawab, the first part of the letter sets out arguments disputing the East India Company’s decision to invest ‘Azim al-Dawlah as the third Nawab of Arcot. Although polite and coached in diplomatic prose, the letter is surprisingly direct in its expression of the extended nawabi family’s strong displeasure, specifying objections on grounds of illegitimacy, inheritance and succession rights under the shari‘ah, the author’s superior claims to the seat (masnad), and possible benefits to the Company if he were to succeed.
The second part of the letter discusses in greater detail the dynasty’s status as the confirmed rulers of the Carnatic region, the genealogy of the main claimants, the author’s claim, and the way in which the East India Company managed the succession. Taken as a whole, the letter vividly illustrates inherent tensions between the nawabs and the East India Company, which eventually took over the administration of the nawab’s domains following the Fourth Anglo-Mysore War (1798-99).
James Skinner (1778–1841) was one of the leading patrons of Delhi artists in the second quarter of the 19th century. The son of a Scottish soldier father and Rajput mother, Skinner was a born soldier and leader of men, but was denied a place in the East India Company’s armies on account of his birth; he became a mercenary working for the Marathas who controlled Delhi at the end of the 18th century. With the outbreak of war between the East India Company and the Marathas in 1803, he took advantage (as did others in similar circumstances) of the Company’s offer to come over to its side. In February 1803, from the men who followed him, he founded a regiment of irregular cavalry, Skinner’s Horse, known as the ‘Yellow Boys’ on account of the men’s yellow surcoats, the first irregular regiment of cavalry in the East India Company’s army. He raised a second regiment of Yellow Boys to assist the Company’s forces at the beginning of the war with Nepal in 1814. It rankled with Skinner that he felt unacknowledged by the Company, which he had done so much to help, until the Governor-General Lord Moira in January 1815, when they met at Skinner’s base in Hansi, gave him the rank of honorary Lt. Col. with precedence over lower ranked gazetted officers (Hastings 1858, vol. 2, pp. 293-5).
Colonel James Skinner, attributed to Ghulam Murtaza Khan, Delhi, 1830. 19 x 12.5 cm (British Library Add.27254, f. 4r)
Skinner’s patronage of Delhi artists doubtless began on account of his friendship with the Fraser brothers, the commissioners of the Fraser Album of paintings from 1815-19 (see Archer and Falk 1989). Skinner’s major commissions include the paintings in his album put together in the 1820s (British Library, Losty and Roy 2012 pp. 222-5), the three large watercolours he commissioned from Ghulam ‘Ali Khan in 1827-8 showing his regiments and his estate at Hansi and another two in 1836 marking his newly built church of St. James in Delhi (National Army Museum, see Dalrymple and Sharma 2012, nos. 58-60, and Losty 2012, figs. 102-3), and those illustrating his writings on castes and rulers (British Library and elsewhere). This is a significant body of work that marks Skinner as the most important patron of the time in Delhi. For overviews of Skinner’s patronage and literary compositions, see Losty and Roy 2012, pp. 222-8, and Dalrymple and Sharma 2012, pp. 32-9.
Skinner was a well-educated man and although his English was from all accounts never very good, his Persian was excellent. This post is concerned with the newly digitised manuscript of one of the two texts that he wrote in that language. His Tazkirat al-Umara (Add.27254, ‘Biographies of the Nobles’) deals with the history of the princely families of Rajasthan, Haryana and the Punjab, tracing their descent and including a portrait of the present head of the family (Rieu 1879, vol. 1, pp. 302-3). The British Library’s copy is dated 1830 with 38 paintings and begins with a dedication (f.3v) in four baits of Persian verses to Skinner’s friend Sir John Malcolm (1769-1833), who had just retired as Governor of Bombay, together with an impression of Skinner’s seal with his titles Nasir al-Dawlah Kirnil Jams Iskinar Bahadur Ghalib Jang (‘Defender of the State, Colonel James Skinner, Lord, Victorious in War’) and the date 1830. These were the Mughal titles which were given on 3 May 1830 to Skinner by the Emperor Akbar II and which are repeated beneath the portrait of Skinner himself on the facing page.
Dedicatory verses to Sir John Malcolm, with Skinner’s Persian seal (British Library Add.27254, f. 3v)
The manuscript is beautifully bound and presented and rarely for an Indian manuscript is decorated round the fore-edge, top and bottom of the text block with decorations.
Decorations on the top of text block (British Library Add.27254)
Another illustrated copy of the same work has a different verse dedication to one Watkin, again on a page with Skinner’s seal, and is now in the Chester Beatty Library (Leach 1996, no. 7.133, p. 726-41). This is also dated 1830 and has 37 portraits listed but actually contains only 33 and does not include a portrait of Skinner. Watkin is presumably the J. Watkins whose signature is on a flyleaf and is probably Lt. Col. James Watkins, who retired from the Bengal Army in 1838. His regiment was based at Ludhiana during the 1830s and he must often have passed through Delhi or Hansi. Another copy dated 1836 has recently appeared from the famous manuscript and early book collection of the Yates, Thompson and Bright families (Christie’s, London, 16 July 2014, lot 39). This has 39 paintings; it lacks the opening portrait of Skinner, but has one of the Malcolm version’s double portraits in two separate paintings, and also has a portrait of Raja Balwant Singh of Bharatpur at the end, who is not noticed in the 1830 manuscripts. The portraits are very much the same in each of these three versions except that the other two sometimes lack the beautiful architectural backgrounds of the Malcolm version or are in mirror reverse. Unillustrated versions also exist (e.g. BL Add.24051, dated 15 April 1830). The paintings would seem to have been added to existing copies of the text when needed for gifts. The scribe of the Yates-Thompson-Bright version, Muhammad Bakhsh, is very possibly the unnamed scribe of the British Library version.
The paintings come from different stylistic backgrounds, some being new versions of older Rajput paintings in that style, others being newly minted in the latest style of Delhi. The portrait of Skinner himself (above) is in this latter style. Seated in a black japanned chair placed on a carpet and nearly full face, he wears the uniform of the colonel of his regiment as well as his CB star given him by Lord Moira in 1815. It may be attributed with some confidence to Ghulam Murtaza Khan, to whom Skinner wrote in 1834 commissioning a portrait and describing the artist as the ‘counterpart of Mani and Bihzad’ (Losty and Roy 2012, p.227).
The iconography of Skinner’s portrait is somewhat different from the others. The opening Rajput portrait (f. 8v), of Maharana Jawan Singh of Udaipur (reg. 1828-38), is more typical of the Delhi manner: it shows the subject seated on a carpet smoking a hookah with bolsters and cushions behind him and a young attendant fanning him, with a background view out to a terrace and a garden (ibid., fig. 162). This is very different from the sort of portraiture practised at this time at the Udaipur court. The portrait of Raja Kalyan Singh of Kishangarh is similarly treated, but this is easier to explain.
Raja Kalyan Singh of Kishangarh (b.1794, reg. 1798-1832, d. 1839). Delhi, c. 1830. 20 x 13 cm (British Library Add.27254, f. 63v)
Kalyan Singh succeeded as a minor in 1798, but after he came of age was unable to resolve disputes with his nobles and fled to Delhi where he spent most of his time. Here he seems to be in his 30s and has obviously been portrayed taken from the life during his self-imposed exile in Delhi. Here the artist has combined a beautifully detailed Mughal pavilion with a typically European curtain swag derived from the type of portraits done by British artists in India. Many of the Rajput nobility, at least those who were not too far from Delhi, would seem to have maintained houses in the city and hence could be portrayed in contemporary fashion.
Maharaja Jagat Singh II of Jaipur (reg. 1803-18). Delhi, c. 1830. 2- x 13 cm (British Library Add.27254, f. 68v)
Typical of the more old-fashioned Rajput portrait (including those of Jodhpur and Bikaner) is that of Maharaja Jagat Singh II of Jaipur, showing him standing in profile, his jama flaring out at the hem, and holding a long sword. Several of these portraits are of rulers already deceased in 1830, but in this case Jagat Singh had a posthumous son, Jai Singh III, born in 1819, so that perhaps portraits of so young a prince were not readily available. Skinner follows his account of Jaipur with notices of fifteen of its thikanas or tributary states, an area of research yet to be tapped.
Maharaja Ranjit Singh of the Punjab (reg. 1799-1839). Delhi, 1830. 20 x 13 cm (British Library Add.27254, f. 176v)
Skinner’s text includes accounts of all the contemporary Sikh rulers, beginning of course with Maharaja Ranjit Singh himself. By 1830, his appearance was well known and our Delhi artist has been able to produce a good likeness of him, albeit playing down somewhat his blind left eye. He is seated on a hexagonal gold throne which may be an attempt to render the Maharaja’s actual golden throne now in the V&A. This has the shape of two octagonal tiers of lotus petals, the traditional seat of Hindu deities, which our artist has perhaps attempted to suggest by portraying Ranjit Singh seated in one of the traditional postures of Hindu deities. Instead of the divine attributes, he bears instead those of a warrior – sword, dagger, shield, bow and arrows. Otherwise the setting is that of a refined Delhi interior with a view to the terrace and curtain swags.
Maharaja Karam Singh of Patiala (reg. 1813-45). Delhi, 1830. 20 x 13 cm (British Library Add.27254, f. 197v)
Other Sikh rulers described in Skinner’s text include those of the major Cis-Sutlej states Patiala, Jind, Nabha and Kapurthala, all of which accepted British suzerainty in 1809 rather than risk be swallowed up in Ranjit Singh’s still expanding empire. Karam Singh ruled the largest territory of the Cis-Sutlej chiefs as suggested perhaps by his large and sprawling person in this portrait. As if to contain him, the artist closes the vista with an arcaded wall behind him. Karam Singh was very helpful to the British in the Anglo-Nepal war of 1814-15 and received in reward a large tract of the Himalayan foothills below Simla.
Whereas the history of the major Sikh princely states is well known, many of the small ones disappeared in the first half of the 19th century. These include all those established in what is now northern Haryana, which in British India were in the Punjab districts of Ambala and Karnal. James Skinner notices several of these small Sikh states, which were his neighbours to the north from his base in Hansi, including Kaithal, Kalsia, Radaur, Ladwa, Jagadhri and Buria along with portraits of the incumbent rulers. These small states were founded in 1763 after Sikh warriors fled south across the Sutlej to escape the carnage wrought on the Punjab proper by Ahmad Shah Durrani. When the land around Delhi was parcelled out after the British victory over the Marathas in 1803-05, these small rulers like their larger neighbouring ones were confirmed in their status and privileges, reinforced again in 1809.
Bhai Uday Singh of Kaithal (reg. 1819-43). Delhi, 1830. 20 x 13 cm (British Library Add.27254, f. 204v)
Bhai Uday Singh (reg. 1819-43), as with others of the rulers of Haryana and the Punjab, appears to have been painted from the life, as the melancholy ruler sits amidst his cushions, a magnificent Kashmir shawl round his waist, holding his sword upright with his katar and shield on the rug beside him between two stylized vases of flowers. The artist has absorbed enough of European portraiture to depict the carpets in perspective and to provide a standard column, but he also provides other more mysterious uprights and diagonals of undisclosed purpose. Horizontal bands of saturated colour set off the whiteness of the Bhai’s gown. Perhaps the Bhai’s apparent melancholy is owing to his childless state, since after his death in 1843 his state lapsed to the British.
Rani of the late Rup Singh of Radaur. Delhi, 1830. 20 x 13 cm (British Library Add.27254, f. 227v)
One of the most striking of the pictures is the only female portrait in the manuscript. Radaur is one of the small former Sikh states in the Ambala district, but its history is as yet very obscure. Nonetheless, the Delhi artist has lavished his invention on the widow’s portrait, showing her seated in a richly ornamented window arch in the zenana with a bed behind her, and producing a sumptuous array of colours in the lower part of the painting contrasting with the cool grey of the decorated plaster work above.
Skinner ends his survey of princely families with four states under Muslim rule. Two of these, Farrukhnagar and Dujana, are just west of Delhi and were established like Jhajjar (Losty and Roy 2012, pp.230-2) from land grants to Afghan military chiefs helpful to the British 1803-05. The portrait of Nawab Zabita Khan, who held land round Rania now in western Haryana (ibid., fig. 163), is the only one in Skinner’s manuscript which is based on a portrait from the Fraser Album.
Nawab Dalil Khan of Bahawalpur. Delhi, 1830. 20 x 13 cm (British Library Add.27254, f. 262v)
Skinner concludes with the large state of Bahawalpur on the left bank of the Sutlej and Indus, although the portrait of the ruler labelled Nawab Dalil Khan is enigmatic. The ruler should have been either Nawab Sadiq Khan II (reg. 1809-26) or Bahawal Khan III (reg. 1809-52). The portrait’s composition seems based on one from earlier in the 18th century, but no Nawab Dalil Khan seems known from that time. The text of the Tazkira has never been published or translated and its on-line digitisation will surely be welcome not just to admirers of late Mughal Delhi but also to historians of early 19th century India. Follow these links for the online digitised version and a complete description of the manuscript and illustrations.
Further reading:
Archer, M., and Falk, T., India Revealed: the Art and Adventures of James and William Fraser 1801-35, Cassell, London, 1989 Dalrymple, W., and Sharma, Y., Princes and Painters in Mughal Delhi, 1707-1857, Asia Society, New York, 2012 Hastings, 1st Marquess of, The Private Journal of the Marquess of Hastings, K.G., ed. by the Marchioness of Bute, London, 1858 Leach, L.Y., Mughal and Other Indian Paintings in the Chester Beatty Library, Scorpion Cavendish, London, 1995 Losty, J.P., Delhi: Red Fort to Raisina, Lustre Press Roli Books, New Delhi. 2012 Losty, J.P., and Roy, M., Mughal India: Art, Culture and Empire – Manuscripts and Paintings in the British Library, British Library, London, 2012 Rieu, Charles, Catalogue of the Persian Manuscripts in the British Museum, London, 1879-83 McBurney, N.G., The 1836 Tazkirat al-umara of Colonel Skinner, London, Bernard Quaritch Ltd, 2014. 2 vols with 49 colour illustrations
These proofs were returned from the University Press Oxford at various times during 1926 to Charles Storey who was then Assistant Librarian at the India Office Library and was actively engaged in cataloguing both Arabic and Persian manuscripts. As can be seen immediately from the number of mistakes, the proofs fully demonstrate the complexity of the material and the consequent difficulties involved in printing. Although he received the proofs in 1926 it took Storey, according to his dated notes, a full year to revise them. What happened next I have not yet discovered, but nothing ever came of Storey’s wish, recorded at the top of the first page: “We should rather like to get these sheets printed off by the middle of March”.
The opening of al-Sūrābādī's commentary on the Qurʼān, one of the oldest Persian manuscripts preserved, copied in Rabīʻ II 523 (1129) by Maḥmūd ibn Gurgīn ibn Gurgsār al-Turkī (British Library IO Islamic 3840, ff. 1v-2r)
The fascicle is headed Catalogue of Persian Manuscripts Volume III and contains:
Qurʼānic literature:
A. Commentaries and translations (cols. 1-36)
B. Glossaries (cols. 36-7)
C. Asbāb al-nuzūl and al-Nāsikh wa’l-mansūkh (cols. 37-8)
D. The pronunciation of the Qurʼān and the variant readings (cols. 38-54)
E. Qurʼānic magic (cols. 54-60)
The titles of the works included in the catalogue, together with their correct manuscript numbers (some have been given new numbers since Storey catalogued them), can be downloaded from the following link:
Today's guest post by the Islamic art historian Barbara Brend celebrates the completion of a project sponsored by the Barakat Trust to digitise two Timurid manuscripts in the British Library's collection, both thought to be, in part, illustrated by perhaps the most celebrated of Persian painters, Bihzad. Both manuscripts are copies of the Khamsah by Nizami. The later of the two, Or.6810, dating from the end of the 15th century, was digitised some time ago and is the subject of two earlier posts (ʻThe Khamsah of Nizami: a Timurid Masterpieceʼ and ʻA Jewel in the Crownʼ). Add.25900 is the earlier copy. Clicking on the hyperlinks will take you directly to the digital copy and further details including a list of all the miniatures with hyperlinks can be accessed from our Digital Persian Project page.
TheKhamsahof Nizami Add. 25900
The Khamsah (Quintet) of Nizami Add. 25900 is an example of a manuscript produced over time. A volume of princely quality necessarily involved the work of a number of specialists: the scribe probably in overall control of the workshop, binders, illuminators, perhaps painters, possibly even paper-makers unless this essential were bought in. But there might be a failure of patronage: the initiating patron might die, or a political upheaval might scatter the workshop. In these cases a manuscript on which talent, time, and money had already been expended might be put aside and at some later date a new patron would order further work on it.
Shirin looks at the portrait of Khusrau watched by Shapur (British Library Add. 25900, f. 41r)
The Khamsah has a colophon dated 846/1442; its last private owner is named in a note on the fly-leaf, “James R. Ballantyne, Nov. 1837”. Ballantyne (1774-1864) was a distinguished Scottish orientalist who worked in India from 1845 to 1861, subsequently becoming Librarian to the India Office. One illustration in the Khamsah is usually considered, on stylistic grounds, to have been painted in Herat at the time of the colophon. It shows “Shirin contemplating the picture of Khusrau” (f. 41r). For the third time Shapur, the friend of prince Khusrau, has hung his portrait on a tree in the mountain pastures where the princess Shirin disports herself with her ladies. The ladies have destroyed the first two pictures, but Shirin, already entranced by the first picture, herself moves to take possession of the third. The ladies, whose gestures indicate a degree of concern, have the pale and elegantly drawn faces characteristic of Herat painting on the 1440s; the face of Shirin, however, has been repainted with more emphatic features and an impression of volume in India in the time of Ballantyne. From the upper left Shapur observes the effect of his painting; he is concealed amongst rocks in which the painter of the 1440s has taken advantage of Chinese conventions of shading to introduce faces of grotesques, which also give an impression of volume, and thus the very opposite of the faces of the ladies.
Bahram Gur kills the dragon. Ascribed to Bihzad in the margin of the lower text panel (British Library Add. 25900, f. 161r)
Half a century later, in or around 1490, fourteen illustrations were added in Herat. “Bahram Gur slays a dragon” (f. 161r) is of this period. The young prince Bahram Gur is a great hunter, particularly of the gur, the onager or wild ass. With a wealth of detail usually bestowed on the description of a beautiful young woman Nizami describes a female onager that catches Bahram’s attention. The prince follows her and she leads him to the cave of a dragon. Bahram slays the dragon, slits it open and finds the onager’s foal inside. She then leads him on to a treasure that the dragon was guarding, and she vanishes. The illustration bears an attribution to the great artist Bihzad, written vertically in the lower text panel. It does not convey the sense of perfected design that we sometimes associate with the work of Bizhad, but it does demonstrate a keen imaginative sympathy. The strongly coloured group of prince and horse are evidently dynamic, but the prince looks very young and his horse is tense and awkward: the prince could be anyone facing up to a challenge, for instance an artist undertaking the depiction of a subject. The mother onager is portrayed as something more than an ordinary animal: the painter seems aware of the poet’s description; he shows both the onager’s eyes, which slightly humanizes the face; and he places her just behind the horizon in the position traditionally used for observers. The dragon, on the other hand, does not engage our sympathies; it remains entirely other. There is, however, a strong sense of its movement as it creeps down from its high cave entrance, with the hint that there is a great deal more of its length to emerge, and perhaps even an impression that the part we already see is heavy with the foal it has eaten.
Mahan confronted by demons finds his horse transformed into a seven-headed dragon (British Library Add. 25900, f. 188r)
From the same book of the Khamsah, Haft Paykar (Seven fair Forms) is “Mahan confronted by demons” (f. 188r) from the story told to Bahram Gur in the Turquoise Pavilion. Already a rich young man, Mahan has been lured into seeking greater wealth and has found himself in a desert place confronted by demons with the heads of elephants and bulls, who carry flames. Further to this, the very horse that he was riding has sprouted wings and become a seven-headed dragon. The Herat painter—is this again Bihzad, working in a slightly different mode, or is it another?--gives the subject a slightly comic treatment that does not detract from its fundamental seriousness. With the clarity of late fifteenth-century Herat painting the demons, individualised as precise shapes, form a “road block” down the left-hand side. As in the previous picture, the rider-and-mount group is differentiated from the rest by strong colour; but here they do not press forward, instead the dragon heads turn on Mahan who strains backwards. The only element that moves forwards is the serpentine tail behind Mahan, while the dragon’s wings seem to hold Mahan like a vice.
Nushabah recognises Iskandar from his portrait (British Library Add. 25900, f. 245v)
Evidently the manuscript was transported to Tabriz, when this was the centre of Safavid rule, as four illustrations were added in 1530s or early 1540s. In this, the grandest of the four, Iskandar (Alexander the Great) has come to visit Nushabah, queen of Barda, in the guise of his own ambassador (f. 245v). Nushabah sees through his pretence and demonstrates the accuracy of her perception by showing Iskandar a picture of himself. With its rocky foreground, this illustration still recalls Herat painting, but Iskandar’s turban, with its bold plumes and the elongated shape caused by its wrapping round a cap with a high central projection, proclaim the Safavid context—as do the turbans of various male attendants who, according to the text, should properly be female. Nushabah may not claim our attention at first, but gradually she does, wearing rather more red than Iskandar, enthroned and sitting in a royal pose, gesturing to the picture that shows she is not mistaken, the whole framed in a magical architecture.
The British Library has exciting news for researchers of Persian manuscripts. The previously unpublished descriptions for a projected third volume of the Catalogue of the India Office Library's Persian manuscript collection have been digitised and made available on the British Library's Digitised Manuscripts website. The catalogue was already well under way in the 1930s but with the intervention of the 2nd World War, the project was never completed. It contains, however, descriptions of about 1,500 works and it is our sincere hope that by making them available, this part of the British Library’s collection will become more accessible to researchers interested in the literature, history and culture of the Persianate world. The digitisation of this important catalogue has been made possible by a grant from the Barakat Trust.
The murder of Iraj by his brothers Tur and Salm in a 16th century Shahnamah partly illustrated by Muhammad Yusuf (see earlier post on this manuscript). One of the manuscripts included in the newly digitised catalogue (BL IO Islamic 3682, f. 29r)
Three giants of Persian scholarship
These draft descriptions, which were primarily written by hand, are the work of three towering figures in Oriental Studies in the UK.
The first scholar whose work is digitised here is Charles Ambrose Storey (1888-1968), who read Classics and Arabic at Cambridge. He is famous for his monumental work, Persian Literature: A Bio-bibliographical Survey, which was intended as a response to Carl Brockelmann's Geschichte der arabischen Litteratur. However, Storey's survey, though unfinished, is much more detailed and thorough, including the content of the works he discusses, information about the life of the author and others connected with the text, lists of known manuscripts with dates of their transcription, as well as a full bibliography of studies, modern editions, and translations. In 1919 Storey became Assistant Librarian and later Librarian at the India Office before being elected Sir Thomas Adams Professor of Arabic at Cambridge in 1933, a great honour and distinction. When Storey passed away, he left his worldly possessions to the Royal Asiatic Society, which has worked to publish posthumously the remainder of his survey. In addition to his survey, Storey also generated a great deal of research on the Persian manuscripts in the India Office collections which he continued working on after 1933 and which was never published; it is this that has been digitised and made available on-line.
The other authors are the equally well-known scholars, Reuben Levy (1891-1966) and Arthur John Arberry (1905-1969). Levy read Persian, Turkish and Semitic languages at Oxford and taught Persian there until moving to Cambridge in the 1920s, where he was a lecturer of Persian before becoming full professor in 1950. Records show that he was still cataloguing manuscripts for the India Office Library as late as 1959. He translated a number of seminal texts from Persian into English, including the Qabusnamah of Kay Kawus b. Iskandar in 1951.
The third scholar to contribute to the planned third volume of the Indian Office Persian manuscripts catalogue was A.J. Arberry. Like Storey, Arberry was employed by the India Office Library between 1934 and 1939, before being appointed to the Chair of Persian at the School of Oriental and African Studies, and subsequently – again following in Storey’s footsteps – to the Sir Thomas Adams Professorship of Arabic at Cambridge University. A profilic scholar, Arberry's many editions of texts and translations from Arabic and Persian, along with his books on a range of topics on the literature and culture of the Islamic world, number around 90 volumes. Famous for introducing the poetry of Jalal al-Din Rumi to the west, he also made elegant translations of the Qur'an and the poetry of Hafiz. Arberry also compiled catalogues of the Arabic and Persian manuscript collections in the India Office Library, Cambridge University Library, and the Chester Beatty Library, all of which are indispensible tools for the researcher today.
The opening of Qarabadin-i Qadiri, a medical pharmacopoeia by Muhammad Akbar Arzani, dated 1792 (BL Delhi Persian 843B)
How to use the catalogue
There are three manuscript sequences included in the catalogue: India Office (IO Islamic) Persian manuscripts acquired between 1903 and 1936, and Delhi Arabic and Delhi Persian — these last two formerly part of the Mughal Imperial Library, Delhi. The digitised catalogue consists of 3778 images grouped in 38 folders (Mss Eur E207/1-38) but arranged in a somewhat haphazard order, partly by subject and to some extent by author.
If readers wish to browse the catalogue, there are partial subject indexes to 33 of the 38 folders:
Readers wishing to look up specific numbers quoted, for example, in Storey’s Persian Literature, or manuscripts listed in Fihrist (the online union catalogue of Arabic script manuscripts in the United Kingdom) should follow this link to the
This lists the contents of the catalogue in manuscript order. Each number is linked directly to its digital image on the web. If the description is several pages long, readers can move to the following or preceding page by using the forward and backward arrows at the top of the screen. A word of warning though: the numbers in the catalogue are largely unchecked and may sometimes be inaccurate!
To facilitate browsing the Delhi Persian collection, we have copied below a general classification of the collection according to a preliminary handlist (IO Islamic 4601-3) which was compiled in Calcutta under the supervision of H. Blochmann ca. 1869.
Delhi Persian 1-34: Qur'anic commentaries and treatises Delhi Persian 35-72: Works on Hadith Delhi Persian 73-122: Adʼiyah or devotional works Delhi Persian 123-125: Principles of law Delhi Persian 126-222: Law Delhi Persian 226-253: ʻAqaʼid or doctrines Delhi Persian 257-326: Kalam Delhi Persian 329-417: Grammar Delhi Persian 420-429: Rhetoric Delhi Persian 431-507: Insha, or prose and letter-writers Delhi Persian 508-567: Lexicography Delhi Persian 569-783: History and biography Delhi Persian 785-788: Physiognomy Delhi Persian 789-797: Logic and dialectics Delhi Persian 798-806: Natural philosophy Delhi Persian 807-872: Medicine Delhi Persian 873-899: Works on Mawaʻiz, homilies and khutbahs etc Delhi Persian 902-953: Ethics Delhi Persian 954-1198: Sufiism Delhi Persian 1200-1202: Dreambooks Delhi Persian 1302-1209: Anecdotes or comic writings Delhi Persian 1210-1213: Riddles Delhi Persian 1222-1420: Poetry Delhi Persian 1424-1475: Mathematics and astronomy Delhi Persian 1492-1499: Charms and geomancy Delhi Persian 1500-1502: Music Delhi Persian 1503-1550: Miscellaneous
Further Reading: Storey, C.A., Persian Literature: A Bio-bibliographical Survey (London, 1972-ongoing). Section 1 is on line: Qur’anic Literature (1927) Arberry, A.J., The Koran Interpreted: A Translation (Reprinted New York, 1996). ---------------, Fifty Poems of Hafiz (Cambridge, 1962) Levy, R., A Mirror for Princes: The Qābūs Nāma (London, 1951)
Nur Sobers-Khan, Curator for Turkey, Museum of Islamic Art, Qatar Museums Authority Ursula Sims-Williams, Asian and African Studies
On 11 January 1937, the British Political Agent in Kuwait, Gerald Simpson De Gaury (1897-1984) returned to Kuwait City from a tour of the interior. Upon his arrival at the Agency, De Gaury was informed by his Head Clerk that a British subject had been arrested and detained by the local authorities. The subject in question, a Pathan [Pashtun] restaurant owner named Abdul Muttalib bin Mahin, had been charged with “selling cat in his restaurant instead of mutton”.
As Muttalib was a British subject, his arrest was contrary to the provisions of the Kuwait Order-in-Council, the agreement between the British Government and Kuwait’s rulers that governed the relationship between the two states. De Gaury’s response to this breach of the agreement was decisive and illustrates well the extent of the British Empire’s control over Kuwait during this period.
According to a letter De Gaury sent to his superior, Trenchard Craven Fowle (1884-1940), the British Political Resident in the Persian Gulf, within half an hour of his return to the city, he had successfully secured Muttalib’s release from prison and temporarily detained him in the Agency instead.
The first page of De Gaury’s letter to Fowle reporting the details of Muttalib’s case, 18th March 1937 (IOR/R/15/1/506 f. 207)
‘A Herd of Eight Fat Cats’
The next day, the ruler of Kuwait, Shaikh Ahmad Al Jabir Al Sabah apologised to De Gaury in person for the “error in procedure” and then sent a letter to the Agency that presented the ‘evidence’ against Muttalib. According to the letter, the Kuwait Town Watch had visited Muttalib’s house and “found a herd of eight fat cats there”. The letter ended with a request for De Gaury to approve Muttalib’s deportation from Kuwait. In the words of De Gaury, “His Excellency or his officers had thus in effect tried, and convicted the man and I was to be merely his executive official for the deportation”.
Subsequently, De Gaury called for Shaikh Ahmad’s Lieutenant (who was head of the Town Watch) to come to the Agency. Once the Lieutenant arrived, De Gaury informed him that he intended to try Muttalib the following day at 3pm and asked for the witnesses to be ready at that time. In his letter to Fowle, De Gaury states that as he had previously seen an unusual number of cats in the Lieutenant’s own home, he “sharply” asked him how many he himself kept, to which the Lieutenant fearfully responded that his household had “about fourteen, including those in the harem” (the area of a house reserved solely for women).
Evidence: A Dead Cat’s Hair
The next day, De Gaury was told that Shaikh Ahmad had gone away on a hunting trip and that it was not possible to call the witnesses to trial without the Shaikh’s permission. Undeterred, De Gaury held the trial regardless and swiftly dismissed the case against Muttalib due to a lack of evidence. In his letter to Fowle, De Gaury mentions that the American Mission[1] had become involved in the case “with their habitual elan” when Dr. Charles Stanley Mylrea from the Mission’s hospital had analysed a hair found by the Mayor on a table in Muttalib’s restaurant and certified it to be the same as that on a dead cat from a dustbin in the neighbourhood. However, much to the chagrin of the Mission, De Gaury decided that, in the absence of all other witnesses, Mylrea’s assessment carried no weight as evidence.
Dr. Mylrea’s Gravestone at the Old Jewish & Christian Cemetery in Kuwait City. Courtesy of Julia & Keld
Playing on the Shaikh’s Weakness
According to De Gaury, by this point, the town had split into pro- and anti-Muttalib factions as a result of the controversy and in order to show his support, De Gaury visited Muttalib’s restaurant and publicly rebuked the Mayor of Kuwait who had initially brought the case against the restaurateur. De Gaury’s actions, combined with pressure from Kuwait’s religious establishment (who also supported Muttalib, “owing to his past charity”), soon led the local authorities to lose interest in the case.
De Gaury believed that the Mayor had initiated the case against Muttaliib in order to try and gain control of his restaurant and had been assisted in this effort by the Town Lieutenant, said by De Gaury to be an “ambitious, jealous man who plays on the Shaikh’s weakness”. At this time, a large number of Indian merchants had recently been expelled from Iran and Iraq and in the words of a British official “were keen to try their luck in Kuwait”. This eventuality worried Shaikh Ahmad as he was concerned that an influx of these merchants into Kuwait would bankrupt their local competitors and cause instability. It is possible that he supported the Mayor’s call for Muttalib’s deportation due to this broader concern.
De Gaury explained to Fowle that the Mayor made the error of attacking a British subject thinking that foreigners would be “easier game” than Kuwaitis and since the Shaikh had “concealed the provisions of the Kuwait Order-in-Council from most of his subjects”, had not realised “that he would in the end encounter me”.
Diplomatic Humour
After receiving De Gaury’s letter, Fowle reported the details of the case onwards to the British Government in India in a letter of his own on 5 May 1937. In this letter, Fowle joked that by using the ‘capital’ of 14 cats, the Lieutenant and the Mayor “could doubtless have started a flourishing business in the restaurant line”.
Fowle’s light-hearted commentary on the final page of his letter to the Government of India regarding Muttalib’s case, 5 May 1937 (IOR/R/15/1/506 f. 214).
Although the charges against Muttalib were dropped, under the belief that his business would suffer as a result of the accusations nevertheless, he wound up his affairs and left Kuwait. Fowle sardonically remarked that it was not known whether he left “with or without his eight cats”. Thus ended what was known while it lasted as the ‘Kuwait Cat’s Meat Crisis’, and in De Gaury’s words “at one time threatened to be rather serious”.
Although De Gaury may have sympathised with Muttalib’s plight on a personal level, the underlying motivation for the decisive action he took in his support clearly had a wider context. As De Gaury observed, many Kuwaiti subjects were unaware of the depth of Britain’s imperial control over the country and the extent to which the Kuwait Order-in-Council infringed upon on the country’s sovereignty. The crisis therefore served to visibly underline the British Empire’s commanding presence in Kuwait. Muttalib’s almost immediate release from prison and the dismissal of the case against him the next day sent a strong message that all British subjects in Kuwait, even those accused of a crime, were under their government’s protection and could not be arrested or prosecuted by the local authorities.
Primary Sources London, British Library, ‘File 53/32 V (D 128) Kuwait Miscellaneous', IOR/R/15/1/506
Further reading al-Ḥātim, ‘Abd Allāh ibn Khālid, Min hunā bada’at al-Kūwayt, 2nd edn (al-Kūwayt: Maṭba‘ah Dār al-Qabas, 1980)
How did a fourteenth century illustrated ‘Treatise on the Art of Riding and using the Instruments of War’ [نهاية السؤل والامنية في تعلم أعمال الفروسية] end up in the British Library’s Arabic manuscript collection? A ‘Nincumpoop’ of the Napoleonic era, who moonlighted as an antiquarian, holds the answer.
This strikingly illustrated manuscript, Add.18866 (currently undergoing digitisation by the BL/Qatar Foundation Partnership), probably originates from Egypt or Syria. It was authored by Muḥammad ibn ‘Īsá ibn Ismā‘īl al-Aqṣarā’ī (d. 1348), and this copy was completed on 10 Muḥarram 773 AH (25 July AD 1371). The manuscript’s title claimed that, in its comprehensiveness, it could nullify all desire for further instruction in the subject.
‘Illustration of four horsemen, each one with a sword and a hide shield, and each one carrying his shield on his horse's croupʼ [صورة أربع فوارس مع كل واحد منهم سيف ودرقة وكل منهم درقته على كفل فرسه] (BL Add.18866, f. 140)
Tracing Provenance
The British Library’s ‘Register of Additional Manuscripts’ states that this item was purchased from the estate of Sir Thomas Reade via a sale at Sotheby’s auction house. It is listed in the 1852 Sale Catalogue as Lot 94, a ‘Treatise on the Art of Riding and using the Instruments of War, with illustrations, beautifully written’.
The sale of Reade’s manuscript Add.18866 to the British Museum. Sotheby and Wilkinson’s Sale Catalogue, 28 January 1852, Lot 94 (BL S.C.Sotheby(1))
The manuscript was the third most expensive item of the two-hundred and sixty lots from his estate, and by far the most expensive of Reade’s Arabic manuscripts. It was purchased on behalf of the British Museum for four pounds, four shillings (equating to four guineas, or £4.20 – about £500 today) by the brothers Thomas and William Boone, specialist antiquarian booksellers with whom the British Museum dealt in the nineteenth century. Prior to this, provenance can be surmised through tracing the life of its former owner.
Thomas Reade in the Army
Sir Thomas Reade (1782–1849) was born in Congleton, England and in 1799 he ran away from home to enlist in the army. Following campaigns in Holland, Egypt and America, as well as postings across the Continent, Reade received many subsequent honours and promotions, culminating in his Knighthood in 1815, aged just thirty-three. This event coincided with the end of his military career and marked a turning point in his life, for, on 29 January 1816, Reade set sail with Sir Hudson Lowe for the remote island of St Helena in the South Atlantic.
Colonel Sir Thomas Reade, C.B. (1782-1849). Unknown artist
Napoleon’s Jailer
According to a biography written by his descendant Aleyn Reade, Sir Thomas was deployed as Deputy Adjutant-General of the troops. Not only was he jailer to the French Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte – exiled there after the Battle of Waterloo – but he acted as the main intermediary between Napoleon and Lowe, whose relationship was famously strained.
Whilst Count Montholon (who accompanied Napoleon to St Helena and was later suspected by some to have poisoned him) spoke favourably of Reade, as did Lieutenant Clifford (a Naval officer who visited the island in 1817), he was not popular with everyone. Gorrequer, Lowe’s Aide-de-camp and acting military secretary, referred to him in his diary by various derogatory pseudonyms including ‘Nincumpoop’ and ‘Ninny’. However, in spite of the rumours and controversy regarding Lowe’s alleged ill treatment of Napoleon, Aleyn Reade argues that the exiled Emperor appeared to have liked or at least favoured Sir Thomas.
Life in Tunisia
Following Napoleon’s death in 1821, Reade returned to England. He was appointed Consul-General of Tunis on 5 June 1824 (London Gazette of that date), and married Agnes Clogg on 9 September that year. In Tunisia in addition to his main charge of defending against the French, his most notable achievement came in 1842 when he successfully influenced the Bey (monarch) of Tunis to abolish slavery throughout his dominions.
He remained in Tunis until his death from cancer in 1849 and was honoured with an impressive public funeral, which, as his obituary states, was ‘celebrated with solemnity and pomp’. It was Reade’s professional standing and foreign postings that enabled him to collect manuscripts, but the life he led outside of his official duties sheds more light on why he acquired them.
Reade the Collector
Like many high-ranking British officers of his day Reade was also a scholar and antiquarian. He studied and collected Carthaginian and Romano-African antiquities and zoological specimens, published papers and excavated among the ruins at Carthage at his own considerable expense. Many of the artefacts he unearthed were given to the British Museum, a practice that was common at the time, but would be a complicated diplomatic issue today. This was part of the less official, but equally destructive looting by colonial officials of the treasures of the greater empire. It is very probable that Reade acquired possession of al-Aqṣarā’ī’s manuscript at this stage of his career.
‘Illustration of a horseman with a sword in his right hand, its blade on his left shoulder and a sword in his left hand whose blade is under his right armpitʼ [صورة فارس ومعه سيف في يده اليمنى وذبابة على كتفه الأيسر وفي يده اليسرى سيف وذبابة تحت إبطه اليمنى] (BL Add.18866, f. 132v )
Unfortunately, this is where the trail runs cold. Exactly where, when and from whom Reade obtained this striking volume is unlikely to come to light. However, the personal interest of a high profile official in ancient antiquities allows us a small insight into the manuscript’s path to the British Library, where it now forms one of the highlights of the Asian and African Studies collection. A detailed catalogue description is available here.
Sources
London, British Library, Department of Western Manuscripts departmental archive: Register of Additional Manuscripts, February 1851 – July 1861.
‘Catalogue of a Valuable Collection of Oriental Books and Manuscripts; including many, the Property of the Late Sir Thomas Reade’, Sotheby and Wilkinson Sale Catalogue, 28 January 1852, pp. 1–16, and accompanying annotations. In BL S. C. Sotheby(1): Auctioneersʼ archival set of Sotheby’s sale catalogues, 20 Jan 1852 to 16 Feb 1852.
Anon, ‘Sir Thomas Reade, C. B.’, The Gentleman’s Magazine, (September 1849), pp. 316–7.
Herbert John Clifford, ‘A Visit to Longwood: copied by his great-grand-daughter, M. C. Bernard, from the diary of Lieut. Herbert John Clifford, R. N., 1817 [written on board H. M. sloop Lyra on the homeward voyage from China, whither the Lyra had gone with Lord Amherst’s embassy.]’, The Cornhill Magazine, (November 1899), pp. 665–75.
James Kemble, St Helena During Napoleon’s Exile: Gorrequer’s Diary. (London: Heinemann, 1969).
There are several portraits of the rulers of the Qajar dynasty in the British Library collections, occurring either as manuscript illustrations or separate paintings, but there are comparatively few examples of their predecessors the Zands who ruled Iran from 1751 until 1794.
One of these is a manuscript copy of a history of the Zand dynasty (Add.24904), the Tārīkh-i gītīgushāʼī (here called Tārīkh-i Zandīyah), by Mīrzā Muḥammad Ṣādiq, which was continued after the author’s death in 1204 (1789/90) by his pupil ʻAbd al-Karīm ibn ʻAlī Riżā al-Sharīf. It was written originally at the request of a later Zand, Jaʻfar Khān (r. 1785-89), intended as a contemporary record of the events of his reign. This volume contains only the section up to the death in 1779 of Karīm Khān Zand, the founder of the dynasty.
Opening of the Tārīkh-i Zandīyah by Mīrzā Muḥammad Ṣādiq (Add.24904, ff.2-3)
A companion volume is Add.24903, a history of the Zands from the end of Karīm Khān’s reign until the defeat and capture of the last ruler Luṭf ʻAlī Khān (r. 1789-94). The author is Ibn ʻAbd al-Karīm ʻAlī Riżā Shīrāzī. Despite the close resemblance of his name to Muḥammad Ṣādiq’s pupil, this work appears to be different from the continuation mentioned above. According to a note at the end, this copy was made for the soldier and diplomat Sir John Malcolm (1769-1833). It is dated Safar 1218 (1803).
Both works were in fact used extensively by Malcolm in his History of Persia and according to the catalogue of the Sotheby’s sale at which they were purchased by the British Museum (Catalogue, p. 17), they were presented to him by the Qajar ruler Fatḥ ʻAlī Shāh himself (r. 1797-1834) while he was Ambassador at his Court [1]. This would have been during Malcolm's 3rd mission to Iran in 1810. Malcolm was on very good terms with the Shah who described him as his ‘first favourite among Europeans’ and made him a Sipahdār ('general) of the Persian army, granting him the order of the Lion and the Sun (Lambton, p. 100). Both manuscripts include richly illuminated openings in addition to exceptional contemporary lacquer bindings decorated with named portraits of the Zand rulers and their courtiers, all sporting typical Zand turbans. We are told in the sale catalogue that ‘These specimens of Oriental binding are in the finest state of Bibliopegistic art, and of rarest occurrence, being only to be found on books given by the Shahs in presents’.
Karīm Khān surrounded by his family and courtiers. Early 19th century (Add.24904, outside front cover)
The front cover contains the following portraits (right to left):
Āzād Khān Afghān (d. 1781) one of the main rivals for control after the assassination of Nādir Shāh in 1747 who surrendered to Karīm Khān in 1762 and subsequently became one of his trusted nobles (Malcolm 2, p. 66); Ismaʻīl Khān - presumably blind. There was an Ismaʻīl Khān, Karīm Khān's nephew, who later became governor of Hamadan (Malcolm 2, p. 104); Karīm Khān (r. 1751-79), the founder of the Zand dynasty who never himself assumed the title of Shāh, choosing instead to be Vakīl (‘deputy’). With a reputation for clemency and forbearance, he apparently had comparatively modest tastes preferring to sit on a rug instead of a throne; Ibrāhīm Khān, Karīm Khān’s 5th son ‘deprived of his virility’ by his cousin Akbar Khān (Malcolm 2, p. 89); Mīrzā Jaʻfar Vazīr, minister of Karīm Khān; Mīrzā Mahdī; Mīrzā ʻAqīl
Ṣādiq Khān surrounded by his family and courtiers. Early 19th century (Add.24904, back cover)
The back cover contains the following portraits (right to left):
Mīrzā(?)…Khān… (illegible); Akbar Khān (d. 1782), son of Karīm Khān’s half-brother, who in 1782 defeated and killed Ṣādiq Khān and all his sons (except Jaʻfar Khān - see below). He was himself subsequently blinded and killed by Jaʻfar Khān in retribution (Malcolm 2, pp. 99-100); Ṣādiq Khān (r. 1779-81), the 5th Zand ruler and Karīm Khān’s brother who was defeated, blinded and killed by Akbar Khān (above); Unnamed prince(?); Mīrzā Ḥusayn Vazīr, ‘a wise and popular minister’ (Malcolm 2, p.104) of Jaʻfar Khān and afterwards his son Luṭf ʻAlī Khān, with pen-box tucked under his arm (see also below); Jaʻfar Khān (r. 1785-89), the 7th Zand ruler and sole surviving son of Sādiq Khān (above); Mīrzā Bāqir
Luṭf ʻAlī Khān (left), son of Jaʻfar Khān, the last of the Zands, defeated in 1794, blinded and put to death on orders of his successor Aghā Muḥammad Khān Qājār (r. 1794-97) whose portrait with Hājī Ibrāhīm (Governor of Shiraz who turned against Luṭf ʻAlī Khān ultimately bringing about his downfall) is included on the front cover of this volume. Luṭf ʻAlī Khān is accompanied (right) by his minister Mīrzā Ḥusayn (Add.24903, inside back cover)
Left: outside board of Add.24903. Right: inside board of Add.24904 which is said to be ‘a representation of the Ceiling in the Divan’ (Catalogue, p. 17)
The lacquered book covers, dating from around 1803, no doubt reflect idealised rather than historical scenes, but the Library does also have a portrait of Karīm Khān which was painted by a contemporary artist. It is one of 23 paintings purchased 15 May 1894 from Sidney Churchill (1862-1921), Persian Secretary to Her Majesty's Legation at Teheran 1886-94, who altogether acquired more than 200 Persian manuscripts for the British Museum. The portrait of Karīm Khān is inscribed on the back, presumably by Churchill, ‘Contemporary portrait said to be of Kerim Khan Zand’. Churchill had a personal as well as professional connection with the Court since his sister-in-law was the daughter of Dr Joseph Tholozan (1858-97), personal physician to Shah Nāṣir al-Dīn Qājār (r. 1848 -1896). It is probable that this portrait was a personal gift.
Contemporary portrait of Karīm Khān, founder of the Zand dynasty (Or.4938, f.1)
Further Reading Charles Rieu, Catalogue of the Persian Manuscripts in the British Museum. 3 vols. London, 1876-83: Add.24904; Add.24903; Supplement. London, 1895: Or.4398 Malcolm, John. The History of Persia, from the Most Early Period to the Present Time. New ed. London, 1829. Vol 2. A. K. S. Lambton, ʻMajor-General Sir John Malcolm (1769-1833) and “The History of Persia”’Iran 33 (1995), pp. 97-109 J. R. Perry, ʻZand dynastyʼ in Encyclopaedia Iranica online Layla S.Diba and Maryam Ekhtiar, eds. Royal Persian Paintings: The Qajar Epoch, 1785-1925. London, 1998. BL S.C.Sotheby(1): ʻAuctioneersʼ archival set of Sotheby’s sale catalogues 1739 to 22 October 1970ʼ. Add.24903 and Add.24904 formed lot 234 of a sale held 26 June 1862, ‘chiefly from the Library of a Collector’. They were purchased by the Museum for £4 8s.
Ursula Sims-Williams, Asian and African Studies
[1] Add.24904 also has the initials J.M. on folio 2r.