This Anthology, copied by Mirza Muhammad al-Katib was slightly restored and bound in Surat for Brueys but was formerly in the collections of the Mughal emperors.
No specific attention was given to manuscripts from Central Asia, probably because comparative material was missing. The interest in illumination and painting was very limited before 1860. Only a handful of bibliophiles (like Fouquet or Colbert) paid attention to Oriental luxurious manuscripts. But scholars and academics were mainly interested to find the best copies of the more important oriental texts. It was not easy to travel to Bukhara and Samarkand and the only places for acquiring books were Istanbul, Aleppo, Cairo, Isfahan or India.
Even if the scholars – like Petis de La Croix in the 17th century – were extremely interested to find documents about Timur and the Timurids, the historians had no direct contact with Mawarannahr before the mid 19th century. For that reason, these few examples of manuscripts collected before the 19th century are extremely important for the history of establishing contacts.
You can learn more about the topic in the book-album "Illustrated manuscripts from Mawarannahr in the collections of France" (Volume XXIX) in the series "The Cultural Legacy of Uzbekistan".
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