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. We can mention three of them. A copy of the Tuhfat al-anvar of ‘Abd al-Rahman Jami, Supplément persan 1416. This manuscript was copied in Herat in 886/1481 by the calligrapher Sultan ‘Ali Mashkhadi. The second manuscript from Schefer is Supplément persan 1449, an interesting small copy of the Persian poem Shirin va Khusraw by the poet ‘Abdullah Hatifi from Kharjird (d. 1521), nephew of Jami. Without a date of copy, this manuscript contains five illustrations.
It is also from the Ottoman Empire that Charles Schefer bought the Turkish poem Lisan at-tayr of Mir Alisher Navoi. This manuscript, now Supplément turc 996 in the BnF, was formerly in the hands of Mustafa ‘Ismet (cfr. F. 1 a). It has no colophon: the date and name of the copyist are unknown. The script is a good nasta‘liq in the style of ‘Ali Hijrani, who also copied Turkish poetry. A date is on one of the six paintings illustrating the poem, on F. 20 a, i.e. 960/1552 – 1553, with mention of the place where the illustrator was working, the land, or town (balada) of Bukhara. On the same painting is an epigraphic panel “for the library of Sultan Abu l-Fath Muhammad Yar Bahadur”.
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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