Chinese Books
This catalogue discusses and illustrates a wide variety of Chinese books, dating from the sixth to the nineteenth century -- some very rare. More
Manuscripts
Manuscripts of the Silk Road
300 x 240 mm, paperback, 52 pages, 30 colour illustrations
PRICE: £20.00
ISBN: 978 0 953942 29 9
Customers in the US or Canada, CLICK HERE
For more than a thousand years, the paths of the Silk Road joined the distant empires of East Asia and the Mediterranean, forming a complex web of trade, pilgrimage and intellectual exchange between China, Central Asia, Persia, Tibet, India, the Near East and Europe.
Interest in the Silk Road was renewed in the nineteenth century. In 1907 Sir Aurel Stein made one of the most sensational archaeological finds of all time: at Dunhuang he discovered a cache of thousands of manuscripts dating from the fifth to the eleventh centuries in several different languages. Most such documents have ended up in institutions like the British Museum, the Bibliothèque Nationale and other national libraries in India, China and Japan.
In keeping with the diversity of the Dunhuang discoveries, this book consists of examples of manuscripts in Chinese, Khotanese, Bactrian, Gandhari, Sanskrit, Tibetan, Syriac, Hebrew and Arabic. The material provides a sense of the fruitful exchanges as well as bitter struggles in these regions over the centuries.
Amorous Delight: The Amarushataka Palm-Leaf Manuscript. Illustrated by the Master of Sharanakula in the 19th Century (Orissa, India)
Around 1800, an anonymous engraver in Sharanakula, a small temple place on the southern coast of Orissa, illustrated a palm-leaf anthology of love poems. The one hundred Sanskrit quatrains, which are said to be the work of the 7th-century poet Amaru, describe the behaviour of enamoured couples, their longing for each other, the lovers’ anxieties, their ecstatic joy as well as their doubts and sorrows. More
Islamic Manuscripts
The selection consists of Qur’ans, illustrated Islamic manuscripts and scientific and religious manuscripts. All are handsomely illustrated and fully discussed. The manuscripts are from all parts of the Islamic world and represent the finest achievements of the form. More
Ink and Gold: Masterpieces of Islamic Calligraphy
Given the status of the Qur‘an as the eternal and uncreated word of Allah, the art of the pen became the focus of an extraordinary energy in the Muslim world. Ink and Gold charts the development of Islamic calligraphy – the noblest, most stylized and original of the Islamic arts – over a period of some 1200 years, from its beginnings in the Arabian Peninsula. More
Turkish Bookbinding
Produced for the Association Internationale de Bibliophilie, this book traces the development of the early Ottoman style under influence from their neighbours; the impact of the patronage of Sultan Mehmed the Conqueror; and the development of the ‘classical’ style under his successor Bayezid II. A catalogue section provides beautiful illustrations of 41 masterpieces of bookbinding; with technical appendices, bibliography, concordance and index. More