British Library Journal (volume 17, number 2, autumn 1991)

Collection Details

Language

English

Now showing 1 - 6 of 6

Some of the metrics are blocked by your
consent settings
Images of the Ottoman Empire: the photograph albums presented by Sultan Abdà¼lhamid II
(1991-11)
Waley, Muhammad Isa
ONE of the treasures of the British Library's Turkish collections is the magnificent set of fifty-one ornately bound albums, containing in all over 1,800 photographs (albumen prints), which the Ottoman Sultan Abdà¼lhamid II presented to the British Museum in 1893 and were received in 1894. (An almost identical set was given to the United States Library of Congress in the same years.) The contents represent a carefully picked selection from the vast photographic collection amassed by the Sultan, whose complete archive of over 33,000 prints is preserved at the Istanbul University Library. The gift was designed to show the Sultan, sovereign of a still considerable territory with a great history, as a reforming and enlightened ruler. Abdà¼lhamid II was an extraordinary figure and can be seen from many different viewpoints. It is not always easy for the reader to believe that the comprehensive character assassination by Sir Edwin Pears, the slightly romantic, perhaps over-protective account by Joan Haslip, and the quasi-hagiography by the Turkish writer Necip Fazil Kisakurek all really concern the same man. In fact, there is abundant scope and material for further research on the Sultan and the events of his reign, which lasted from 1876 to 1909. His photographs will surely play a part in that process.
1 8
Some of the metrics are blocked by your
consent settings
The British Museum Library and the India Office
(1991-11)
Sternberg, Ilse
SOME five years after an encouraging approach to the Colonial Office concerning colonial copyright deposit, an active Trustee of the British Museum and a personal friend of Panizzi, Lord Elgin, was appointed as Viceroy of India. Winter Jones quickly reminded the Principal Librarian of 'a conversation Mr. Watts and myself had with you sometime ago respecting the difficulty of farming [sic] for the Museum Library the books printed in the East Indies. It was suggested on that occasion that the appointment of the Earl of Elgin to the post of Governor General [sic] of India might perhaps present an opportunity of facilitating somewhat the collection of the works in question if his Lordship could be induced to give directions upon the subject.'
Some of the metrics are blocked by your
consent settings
A glimpse above the clouds: the Japanese Court in 1859
(1991-11)
Todd, Hamish
THOSE of us seeing pictures of the recent enthronement of the 125th Emperor of Japan on television or in the newspapers might have been forgiven for thinking that we were seeing a Heian picture scroll come to life. The ceremonies serve to remind us of the great antiquity of the Japanese monarchy and of the traditions that surround it. Ancient though its origins may be, however, over the course of its long history, the imperial institution has undergone great changes both of form and of substance.
Some of the metrics are blocked by your
consent settings
Colin Mackenzie: collector extraordinary
(1991-11)
Blake, David M.
ONE of the most wide ranging collections ever to reach the Library of the East India Company is formed by the manuscripts, translations, plans, and drawings of Colin Mackenzie, an officer of the Madras Engineers and, at the time of his death in 1821, Surveyor-General of India. Mackenzie spent a lifetime forming his collection which is exceptional, not only for its size, but also for the fact that materials from it are to be found in almost every section of the India Office Collections including Oriental Languages, European Manuscripts, Prints and Drawings, and Maps. Including manuscripts in South Indian languages held in the Government Oriental Manuscripts Library in Madras, the collection originally contained materials in English, Dutch, and, according to Mackenzie's own estimate, no fewer than fifteen Oriental languages written in twenty one different characters. Altogether, according to a statement drawn up in August 1822 by the well known orientalist Horace Hayman Wilson who, after Mackenzie's death, volunteered to undertake the cataloguing of the collection, there were 1,568 literary manuscripts, a further 2,070 Mocal tracts', 8,076 inscriptions, and 2,159 translations, plus seventy-nine plans, 2,630 drawings, 6,218 coins, and 146 images and other antiquities. What manner of man was it that amassed this vast collection?
Some of the metrics are blocked by your
consent settings
An archive of the 1989 Chinese Pro-Democracy Movement
(1991-11)
Bond, Sherry
A collection of photocopies of leaflets relating to the Spring 1989 Pro-Democracy Movement in China has been assembled in Oriental and India Office Collections. Most of the original leaflets were collected in Peking by Robin Munro, who was working for Amnesty International at the time and is now a member of Asia Watch, the New York based human rights monitoring organization. Further leaflets have since been presented by June 4th China Support. This is an ad hoc group of sinologists and others with Chinese connections which was formed in the United Kingdom in response to the massacre in Tiananmen Square on 4 June 1989. As many people in China tried to send news of the massacre and its after-effects abroad, and many Hong Kong Chinese began gathering evidence in anticipation of an official cover-up, June 4th China Support felt that archival material should be collected and is continuing to channel such material to the British Library. For example, seventy-two photographs and twenty-nine slides of banners and wall posters taken in Peking in May 1989 by free-lance photographers Sally and Richard Greenhills, material published in Hong Kong concerning Tiananmen Square, and a collection of newspaper articles relating to China and Hong Kong from The Financial Times, The Economist, the European edition of The Wall Street Journal and The International Herald Tribune, covering the period from 1 March 1989 to the present, have been generously contributed to the Library by various sources.
3
Some of the metrics are blocked by your
consent settings
Malay manuscript art: the British Library collections
(1991-11)
Gallop, Annabel Teh
MANUSCRIPTS written in the Malay language originate from throughout the Malay archipelago, the area occupied by the present-day nations of Malaysia, Indonesia, Brunei, Singapore and the southern, ethnically Malay, regions of Thailand and the Philippines. Malay manuscripts are usually written on imported paper of European, Chinese or Indian manufacture in a modified form of the Arabic script known as Jawi. The earliest extant Malay manuscripts on paper date from the sixteenth century and the tradition of copying manuscripts continued into the first half of the twentieth century. Decoration and illumination in Malay manuscripts are the exception rather than the rule, with most examples falling into two categories, decorated frontispieces and colophons of texts and illuminated royal letters.
8 25

British Library Journal (volume 17, number 2, autumn 1991)

British Library Journal (volume 17, number 2, autumn 1991)

Filters

Settings

Sort By

Results per page