Chester Beatty Library: Oriental Collection

Founded in 1950, the Chester Beatty Library is a treasure trove of manuscripts and books of Western and Eastern culture. The Islamic collection contains more than 6 thousand copies, including drawings and written documents. Among them are more than two hundred editions of the Koran (full versions, as well as fragments). Some of them were created at the end of the VIII century. The East Asian collection boasts many scrolls and albums, jade books from China. Rarities illustrated by such masters as Hokusai and Hiroshige were brought from Japan. The rest of the collection consists of Tibetan, Thai, Mongolian, Indian, and Nepali books. In addition to hand-written rarities, the Library contains objects of decorative and applied art, in particular, about one thousand Chinese snuffboxes.