Watermark tracings from the Topkapi Palace Museum Archives
Overview
More than 1700 tracings of watermarks of 15th-19th-century documents and manuscripts held by the Topkapi Palace Museum Archives.
Dates
- circa 1950-2000
Creator
- Anafarta, Nigâr, 1918-2001 (Compiler, Person)
Language of Materials
Documents are in Ottoman Turkish (Arabic alphabet) or modern Turkish (Latin alphabet).
Conditions Governing Access
Open for research.
Extent
3 linear feet (6 boxes)This collection consists of more than 1700 tracings of watermarks of 15th- through 19th-century documents and manuscripts held by the Topkapi Palace Museum Archives, hand-copied over 50 years onto tracing paper with India ink and mounted on card stock by Nigar Anafarta. Some documents originated from European sources, some from local sources; there are more than a dozen non-Western watermark tracings. Each tracing is annotated with notes indicating the source document or manuscript in the Topkapı Archives and the date, when available.
The documents from which tracings were taken are dated according to the Islamic or the Gregorian calendar, or by century indicated by Roman numeral; the tracings have been interfiled to create chronological series where possible.
Topkapi register (document) numbers are sometimes given in annotations by Anafarta.
Biographical / Historical
Nigâr Anafarta (1918-2001) was archivist, art historian, and longtime director of the Topkapı Palace Museum Archives where she worked from 1960 until her death; she created and assembled this collection. The collection came to Harvard through the work of András J. Riedlmayer, Bibliographer in Islamic Art and Architecture for the Harvard University Library.
The collection demonstrates the use of European paper in Constantinople as well as domestic paper production within the Ottoman Empire.
Arrangement
Tracings are arranged in series by size and then by date where possible.
Physical Location
Harvard Depository
Immediate Source of Acquisition
2018MH-18. Purchased from Ün Sahaf with funds from the Aga Khan Endowment Fund at Harvard University, 2018.
Processing Information
With funding from the May-Crane Fellowship, the collection was organized by date and size, housed in protective enclosures, and partially digitized at the Weissman Preservation Center, 2019. Paper clips were removed and previously bound sets of tracings were kept together in folders.
Creator
- Anafarta, Nigâr, 1918-2001 (Compiler, Person)
- Title
- Anafarta, Nigâr, compiler. Watermark tracings from the Topkapi Palace Museum Archives, circa 1950-2000 (MS Typ 1215).
- Status
- completed
- Author
- Houghton Library, Harvard University
- Date
- 2018 June 6
- Description rules
- dacs
- Language of description
- und
- EAD ID
- hou02952
Repository Details
Part of the Houghton Library Repository
Houghton Library is Harvard College's principal repository for rare books and manuscripts, archives, and more. Houghton Library's collections represent the scope of human experience from ancient Egypt to twenty-first century Cambridge. With strengths primarily in North American and European history, literature, and culture, collections range in media from printed books and handwritten manuscripts to maps, drawings and paintings, prints, posters, photographs, film and audio recordings, and digital media, as well as costumes, theater props, and a wide range of other objects. Houghton Library has historically focused on collecting the written record of European and Eurocentric North American culture, yet it holds a large and diverse number of primary sources valuable for research on the languages, culture and history of indigenous peoples of the Americas, Africa, Asia and Oceania.
Houghton Library’s Reading Room is free and open to all who wish to use the library’s collections.
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