29th Oct, 2020 13:00

Islamic & Indian Art

 
Lot 177
 

A COLLECTION OF GUJARATI SHORT TALES IN THREE VOLUMES
Possibly Gujarat, North-Western India, dated 1809

A COLLECTION OF GUJARATI SHORT TALES IN THREE VOLUMES
Possibly Gujarat, North-Western India, dated 1809

Parsi Gujarati manuscripts on paper, comprising three loose volumes, 36ff., 63ff. and 70ff. respectively, each with approx. 12ll. of black and red ink Gujarati script to the page, two volumes dated Samvat Srvana Masa 1865 and 1224 AH (August 1809), the fly-leaves made of a variety of cream-coloured, laid, British watermarked papers from different late 18th - early 19th-century English mills, such as Curteis & Sons, Carshalton, Sutton, London; Britannia; and George Smith, London; each volume once bound in dark maroon leather, with inventory marks from Coleman collection (MS5570, 5571, 5571a), then Eames Collection, and later The Newberry Library collection (ORMS 851, 853, 854), each encased in brown protective cases, the largest folio 25cm x 21cm.

Provenance: Acquired from the Newberry Library, Chicago, in 1995.

Each volume contains several short stories and tales on morality, most probably translated from Hindi by different Munshis, such as Pestonji Hirji and Hormanji Phiroje. Around the same time, Mr. Thomas Waite commissioned a similar collection of stories in Urdu. Thus, it is likely to suggest these volumes could have been an intentional commission from a European investigator and scholar.

Sold for £1,125

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