One of the biggest French collectors of Oriental manuscripts in the second half of the 19 century, Charles Schefer (1820 – 1898) was not only interested in Arabic, Persian, Turkic and Turkish texts but also collected illuminated and illustrated volumes. Schefer was an orientalist, interpreter and later, after 1871, professor and Director of the French School of Oriental languages. Erudite scholar, he was in correspondence with many scholars in the whole Middle East; some of them sent him interesting manuscripts. For example, in 1890, Mr Müller, a teacher at Tashkent High School, sent the current manuscripts Supplement turc 1189 and Supplement turc 1190 of the BnF, through a certain Mr Bonvalot, to Charles Schefer.
Schefer was interested in Turkic literature and history of Mawarannahr. His whole manuscript collection was acquired in 1899 by the French government and given to the National Library of France. Amongst these valuable acquisitions are illustrated manuscripts from Mawarannahr.
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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