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Records created in the early use and research of the collections. These include a ledger, correspondence and collection information.

Information about, and evidence of engagement with the archival collections of the Society. For collections with a significant amount of material, a separate subseries was created.

Information about, and evidence of engagement with the artworks of the Society. For collections with a significant amount of material, a separate subseries was created.

Information about, and evidence of engagement with the artwork collections of the Society. These are:

• Correspondence concerning the possible sale of, and notes about, the Qajar painting of two girls (RAS Cat.01.002) by an unknown artist. This sale did not go ahead. Typed and handwritten, 18 pieces, dated 14 May 1976 - 21 February 1978.
• 'Sotheby's Inventory and Valuation of the Oil Paintings, Busts and Plaques, Drawings, Works by Oriental Artists, Miscellaneous Engravings, Aquatints and Lithographs, Prints, Manuscripts and Indian Miniatures at 60 Queen's Gardens, London, W2 3AF and the Victoria and Albert Museum, to property of Royal Asiatic Society, taken for the purpose of Insurance at Mid-Sale Estimate, June 1992' - valuation report and allied correspondence between James Stourton, Director, Sotheby's and the Royal Asiatic Society, dated 11-29 June 1992.
• Reviews for the 'Catalogue of Paintings, Drawings, Engravings and Busts in the Collections of the Royal Asiatic Society' by Raymond Head, published by the Society in 1991. Copies of reviews from Ars Asiatiques XLVII 1992, Oriental Art, Winter 1993/3, and History Today February 1992.
• 'Equestrian portrait of Dara Shikoh' (RAS Cat.053.001) - postcard from a photograph by Kevin Lovelock, British Museum, 1998.
• Descriptions of the Chinese popular prints donated by Brian Houghton Hodgson and John Robert Morrison, description by Yin Hwang, dated 2000.
• 'Lieutenant-Colonel Godfrey Phipps Baker, 1786-1850' by Stuart Wilkinson, Society of Dyers and Colourists - article about Phipps Baker who donated a collection of artworks of Java. The article is undated.
• Correspondence between Dr Patrick Tuck, University of Liverpool and the Royal Asiatic Society concerning the use of the image of the Chinese Court of Justice (RAS Cat.01.001) as the image for the conference menu card at the 'British Ships in China Seas Conference' held 17-20 September 2002. Correspondence is dated 31 May 2002.
• 'Ethiopian Paintings at the Royal Asiatic Society' by Alison Ohta - an article within The Anglo-Ethiopian Society News File, Summer 2008.
• 'Ethiopian Paintings held by the Royal Asiatic Society' by Geoffrey Ben-Nathan - an article within The Anglo-Ethiopian Society News File, Summer 2009, in relation to a lecture delivered by Heidi Cutts (British Museum) and Dorothea McEwan (Warburg Institute) on 24 March 2009. Note that in the same booklet there is another article by Chris Grant on the 2009 AGM lecture delivered by Louise Carver on population and sustainability in Ethiopia.
• Article relating to Dora Gordine and her connection with the Society. These are: 'Dora Gordine and the Royal Asiatic Society', 'Dora Gordine and Freya Stark', both by Dr Jonathan Black, Senior Research Fellow, Dorich House Museum, dated February 2008; and a copy of ‘Alive and significant: Aspects of Indian Art, Stella Kramrisch and Dora Gordine in South Kensington c. 1940' by Sarah Victoria Turner, published in ‘Wasafiri’, 2011. This latter article is an electronic article first created in 2011 and made into an archival document in 2025.
• 'Age of discovery' by Fran Gillespie - article concerning the exhibition 'India: East/West' of paintings and drawings from the Society's Collections held at the Virginal Commonwealth University, Qatar, March 2010. The article is from the Gulf Times, 25 March 2010.
• 'The Jones collection of botanical drawings at the Royal Asiatic Society' - script of a talk given by Kathy Lazenbatt, Royal Asiatic Society Librarian, at the Botany in British India study day, British Library, 7 December 2012.
• 'Representations of Nepal in the nineteenth century: the watercolour paintings of Dr. Henry Ambrose Oldfield', a dissertation submitted for the University of Sussex MA in Art History, 2 September 2013 in which the Hodgson Collection of Nepal paintings were used in the candidate's research.
• 'Conservation of a Shi'ite Pilgrimage Scroll from the Royal Asiatic Society' by Mathilde Renauld in the brochure for the MA Conservation 2018, Camberwell College of the Arts, London.
• 'A Global Society', an article in Asian Affairs, July 2017. concerning the new acquisition of a portrait of recent presidents and the director of the Society.

Correspondence concerned with information about the collections. These are:

• Letter from Michael Faraday, Royal Institution, to Sir Alexander Johnstone, Royal Asiatic Society, concerning the constitution of a bowl from Java which was made from an alloy of copper and tin. Handwritten, 1piece, dated 11 April 1827. With the letter is a sheet of information about the bowl in which it states it was in the possession of John Crawfurd, handwritten, 1 piece.
• Letter from Joseph L. Williams to the Royal Asiatic Society to ask for permission to inspect the art collection of the Society with the view to them being copied for publication in 'The Comprehensive History of India'. Handwritten, 1 piece, dated 6 September 1838.
• Letter from the East India House to accede to the request for Henry Rawlinson to remove to the Society a slab to create a facsimile of its inscription. Handwritten, 1 piece, dated 29 April 1858.
• Letter from General Jacob to James Redhouse, Secretary, Royal Asiatic Society, to send a letter from Mr Friederich concerning the Bali Purana. Unfortunately the letter is no longer enclosed. Handwritten, 4 sides, dated 27 February 1863.
• Letter from J.W. Freeland to the Royal Asiatic Society to provide the translation of a Chinese Inscription found on a stone presented to the Society by Sir Henry Parkes. Handwritten, 4 sides, dated 3 August 1863.
• Letter from John Scarth to the Royal Asiatic Society to give his and Dr Hobson's views on a manuscript, perhaps by Charles Gutzlaff, concerning Chinese philosophy. There is some doubt as to the authorship of the manuscript. Handwritten, 7 sides, dated 8 October. With the letter is the one from Hobson to Scarth expressing his views. Handwritten, 4 sides, dated 1 October.
• Letter from N. de Khonikof to the Royal Asiatic Society concerning the Tarikh namah. Handwritten in French, 1 side, dated 26 July 1868.
• Letter from Robert K. Douglas, British Museum, to Charlotte Hughes, Secretary, Royal Asiatic Society, to provide information on two volumes of Japanese poems. Handwritten, 2 sides, dated 21 December 1893.
• Correspondence between H.F. Eggeling, F.W. Thomas and Miss Lowes Dickinson concerning manuscripts belonging to the Royal Asiatic Society found among the property of Professor Eggeling, former Honorary member and Secretary of the Society, upon his death. Handwritten and typed, 9 pieces, dated 24 May - 2 December 1918.
• Correspondence from Gertrude A. Anderson to the Royal Asiatic Society concerning gift of Thomas Manning's Chinese books to the Society - information needed for her research to produce a book on Manning's letters to Charles Lamb. Handwritten, 2 pieces, dated 17 July -3 August 1919.
• Correspondence with William Foster providing information concerning the collections. Foster published the article, 'The Pictures of the Royal Asiatic Society' in the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, January 1924. Handwritten, 4 letters, dated 16 November 1915 - 24 October 1923.
• Correspondence concerning Japanese pictures left at the Royal Asiatic Society by Henry Faulds of the Royal Anthropological Institute. Handwritten and typed, 6 pieces, dated 31 January 1921 - 21 April 1932.
• Correspondence concerning the reproduction and the repagination of the Shahnamah of Firdausi manuscript. Also included is information concerning annotations in the manuscript and a short history of the donor. Typed and handwritten, 30 pieces, dated 22 October 1930 - 14 February 1932.
• Correspondence concerning the identification of the Chinese books donated by Thomas Manning and the subsequent employment of Shelley Wang to catalogue the Chinese books of the Society. Typed and handwritten, 24 pieces, dated 5 November 1929 - 15 April 1937.
• Correspondence from Dr. P.E. Pieris concerning an error in the description of a watercolour by J. Stephanoof representing the High Court of Ceylon (Sri Lanka). Typed, 5 pieces, dated 15 April - August 1937.
• Letter from Dr Y.D. Sharma, Assistant Superintendent, Department of Archaeology, Calcutta (Kolkata) to Mrs Davis, Secretary, Royal Asiatic Society, concerning an inscribed slab within the Collections originally from the Anantavasudeva Temple at Bhuvanesvar. He asks if a thick squeeze could be made of it. Typed, 1 piece, dated 6 August 1948.

Digitisation and reproduction requests are made by researchers, institutions and publishers. Most of these are not kept for archival purposes. The ones listed below are kept either as examples of reproduction that has been carried out historically or because of the more significant nature of the project.

1960s-1970s

• Correspondence with the British Council and British Embassy concerning the microfilming of Burmese manuscripts requested by the Burmese Historical Commission. Typed and photocopied, 3 pieces, dated 29 August - 31 October 1963.
• Correspondence with Gregg Press Limited concerning the loan of volumes from the Society's collections for facsimile reprints. Also a booklet listing the books borrowed. Typed, handwritten and printed, 16 pieces, dated 17 December 1964 - 1 January 1970.

1980s-1990s

• Correspondence with the British Library concerning supplying photocopies of Malay manuscripts for an exhibition in Kuala Lumpur. Typed, 2 pieces, dated 6 - 25 January 1984.
• Correspondence with the British Council and the British Library concerning the microfilming of Javanese manuscripts for the Sultan of Yogyarta, Indonesia. Typed and copies of handwritten, 12 pieces, dated 26 May 1988 - 12 February 1990.
• Correspondence concerning the desirability for the Society to have photographic records of six Persian manuscripts on long-term loan to the British Library. Typed, 2 pieces, dated 15 January 1992.
• Correspondence with the King Fahd National Library, Saudi Arabia, concerning the microfilming of Arabic and Persian manuscripts in the Royal Asiatic Society's collections. Typed, 11 pieces, dated 17 December 1994 - 3 October 1995.
• Agreement between the Royal Asiatic Society and The Yayasan Karyawan, Malaysia, to publish a facsimile edition of Raffles Manuscript 67. Two copies of the agreement, 4 pieces, dated 15 September 1997.
• Correspondence between Florence Tran, Cafe Productions Limited, and Kit Naylor, Royal Asiatic Society, concerning the reproduction of artworks from the Society's collections to be included in the TV programme, 'The Great Wall of China'. Typed, 3 pieces, dated 2 -3 November 1998.
• Agreement between the Royal Asiatic Society and the Bridgeman Art Library, London, for production and sale of images of artworks within the Society's Collections. Typed, 4 pieces, dated 1 March 1999.

2000s-2010s

• Correspondence and agreement with the National Galleries of Scotland concerning the digitisation of two artworks for an online exhibition in connection with their 'The Tiger and the Thistle' Festival exhibitions. Typed, 3 pieces, dated 30 December 1999 - 20 January 2000.
• 'Microfilm of R.A.S. Oriental Manuscripts' - list of the manuscripts for which the Society has microfilms. Typed, 8 pieces, dated January 2000.
• 'Royal Asiatic Society Titles Microfilmed by Microform Academic Publishers' - list of the Society's publications reproduced. Typed, 5 pieces, undated.
• Memorandum of Agreement with the Folio Society for the publication of a Folio Society edition of the 'Life of Muhammad: Ibn Ishaq' translated by Edward Rehatsek. Typed, 1 piece, dated 6 March 2003.
• Correspondence with Prometheus Books concerning the right to publish Edward Rehatsek's 'Life of Muhammad'. Typed and copies of emails, 8 pieces, dated 14 April - 1 November 2005.
• Correspondence with the Institute of Oriental Philosophy concerning the publication of the Sanskrit Lotus Sutra Manuscript in the Society's Collections. Typed, 6 pieces, dated 3 June - 24 July 2007.
• 'Microfilm of R.A.S. Oriental Manuscripts' - list of the manuscripts microfilmed. Typed, 18 pieces, dated 29 June 2009.
• License Agreement with Cross Street Films for reproducing a miniature of Rana Jai Singh (Head Cat. No. 063.034) in the television documentary Sex, Death and the Gods. Typed, 2 pieces, dated 13 December 2010.
• Correspondence with Max Communications concerning the digitisation of material in the Society's collections and the creation of a digital library. With this material is the text of a talk given by Edward Weech, Royal Asiatic Society Librarian, at the Max Communications Archives and Heritage Conference 2018. Typed, 15 pieces, dated 2018.

2020s

• Signed digitisation agreement between the Society and the Universiti Sultan Zainal Abidin, Malaysia, regarding the digitisation of 11 Malay manuscripts (mostly from the Maxwell collection) held by the Society. Typed, 7 pieces, undated but the signing ceremony was conducted via Zoom on 29 July 2025.

Material for general or limited engagement with the archival collections. These are:

• Correspondence concerning the Papers of John Hansman and David Stronach. Two letters between Michael Pollcok, Royal Asiatic Society Librarian and John Hansman concerning a suitcase of material left by Hansman at the Society. Typed, 2 pieces, dated 28 November 1996-14 January 1997. Further correspondence between Nancy Charley, Royal Asiatic Society Archivist and John Hansman concerning the same material. Two electronic documents, dated 6 February 2018 -14 December 2018. (Archival documents made in 2025).
• Papers of Sir Aurel Stein - Letter from Helen Wang, British Museum to Michael Pollock, Royal Asiatic Society Librarian to send him a copt of the Society's entry into the Handbook to the Stein Collections in the UK. The copy is with the letter. Typed, 2 pieces, dated 14 August 1998. A further letter from A.D.H. Bivar to the Librarian, Royal Asiatic Society requesting a photographic copy of the portrait of Sir Aurel Stein. Typed, 1 piece, dated 16 January 2004.
• List of bound archives - list of minute books and other bound historic archival material. Electronic document, created in 2001; archival document created in 2025.
• Papers of William Claxton Peppé - Correspondence and the draft of a talk concerning the items in these papers and their discovery. Typed, 11 pieces, dated 2003.
• Papers of Brian Houghton Hodgson - An article from the Kantipur Daily, 14 November 2007 concerning some of the discoveries made by Dr Ramesh Dhungal on his initial listing of the Hodgson Papers; an article,'Hodgson's Legacy' which includes brief details of the collections at the Royal Asiatic Society. Typed and scanned, 6 pieces.
• 'Tackling Highly Original Order' by Nancy Charley, Royal Asiatic Society Archivist. concerning the initial sorting of the archival collections. Published in ARC magazine, Archives and Records Association, October 2015.
• 'Opium, Silk and the Missionaries in China' - exhibition brochure for exhibition at the Brunei Gallery, School of Oriental and African Studies, London, 2021 in which the letter from Thomas Weeding (East India Company Agent and Independent Merchant) to Captain Harkness, Secretary to Royal Asiatic Society, concerning the gift of the "Grand Chop" or clearance document for the Sarah, the first ship to arrive in England directly from China after the East India Company relinquished its commercial character. was exhibited.

Material that reflects engagement with the Collections of the Society as a whole. These are:

• 'Our Learned Societies: The Royal Asiatic' - an illustrated article from The Graphic describing the Society and its collections. Printed, two copies, dated 26 November 1910.
• Copy of an article on the Royal Asiatic Society from the Allgemeine Press Zeitung, 1841. With the copy is a transcription of the article and a working translation into English. Copy and typed, 9 pieces, undated.
• 'Eastern Treasures Come West' by Raymond Head, an article about the Society's collections found within Antiques and Art, October 3-9, 1980, Volume 42, Number 8.
• 'The Library of the Royal Asiatic Society' - article by T.V. Finnerty written as part of his coursework for his qualification in Library and Information Studies, University College, London. Typed, 11 pieces, dated 22 April 1998.
• 'The Library of the Royal Asiatic Society and Its Collections Relating to Southeast Asia' - proof copy of an article written by Michael Pollock, Royal Asiatic Society Librarian, published in the journal Libraries and Culture, University of Texas Press, 1998. With the article is a covering letter requesting a quick return of corrections. Typed, 12 pieces, dated 17 June 1998.
• 'Nurturing the Roots for Oriental Studies: the development of the Libraries of the Royal Asiatic Society's Branches and Affiliates in the Nineteenth Century' - an article written by Harold Otness published in the Bulletin of the International Association of Orientalist Librarians, 1998, p.9-17. This is a copy, 9 pieces, computer printed in January 2007.
• 'R.A.S. Inventory - February 1999' - an inventory on pictures and objects and their location in the Society's premises at Queen's Gardens, London. Typed, 8 pieces, dated February 1999.
• 'R.A.S. Portrait Inventory - October 2001' - an inventory of portraits, photographs and busts on display in the Society's premises. Typed, 2 pieces.
• 'The Royal Asiatic Society' by Xenobe Purvis. Copy of an article from Asian Art, March 2018 concerning the Society's collections and the launching of its Digital Library.
• Publicity Poster for 'Systems of religion and morality in the collections of the Royal Asiatic Society' by Edward Weech, Royal Asiatic Society, a talk given at the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies, 15 October 2018.
• Programme for the spring gathering of the South Asia Archive and Library Group, held at the Royal Asiatic Society, at which Edward Weech, Royal Asiatic Society Librarian spoke on 'The Royal Asiatic Society Bicentenary: reflecting on two centuries of collecting and scholarly exchange' Typed, 1 piece, gathering held on 15 May 2023.

There are also a number of electronic documents. These were all created into archival documents in 2025:

• 'The Royal Asiatic Society's Museum', from The Penny Magazine of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, Vol 10, 1841, describing the collections on display in the Society's premises at Grafton Street, London. This is an electronic document, originally created in 2015 from the Internet.
• 'Report on the Explore Your Archive Tea and Testimony Creative Writing Event, 20th November, 2015' - report created by Nancy Charley, Royal Asiatic Society Archivist, after using the collections for a creative writing event as part of Explore Your Archive 2015. Originally created in November 2015.
• 'Creativity and the Collections' - a report prepared by Nancy Charley, Archivist, concerning possible ways in which the Collections could be used to encourage creativity. Originally created in September 2016.
• 'Creative Writing Event, 23 November 2016' - a report created by Nancy Charley, Archivist, concerning a second creative writing event, Writ in Water. Document originally created in November 2016.
• 'Sorting the Miscellaneous Box' - an article created by Nancy Charley, Archivist, following a talk on the same topic to the South Asian Archives and Library Group in 2017. The document was originally created in October 2017.

The Society's collections hold two Jambudvipa - RAS Cat.065.001 and RAS Cat.069.001. The information about these is:

• 'Royal Asiatic Society, Number 065.001, Jambudvipa, a Jain map of the universe, c.1830' - an article by Dr Nalini Balbir concerning this item. Also with this is another article by Balbir, 'Jain Yantra kept at the Royal Asiatic Society', dated January 2012.
• 'Science Museum: 5000 years of Science and Innovation - Illuminating India' - advertising brochure for the exhibition in which the Society's Jambudvipa is featured, 2017-2018.
• 'The Silk Road to Silicon Valley - 5000 years of Indian innovation' - copy of an article from The Times, 3 October 2017 concerning the Science Museum exhibition in which the Jambudvipa was shown.

The painting of Madhu Rao Narayan, the Maratha Peshwa, with Nana Fadnavis (RAS Cat.01.014) by James Wales is the largest painting within our Collections. The material associated with it is:

• 'The Indian Mutiny and British Painting' by Brian Allen in Apollo, the International Magazine of the Arts, September 1990 which featured the painting on the front cover of the magazine and within the article.
• Single page from a French journal featuring the painting, undated.
• Colour postcard of the painting created by the National Portrait Gallery, undated.
• '"Take All of Them": Eclecticism and the Arts of the Pune Court in India, 1760-1800' by Holly Shaffer, from The Art Bulletin, June 2018 which featured the painting in the article and on the front cover.