Selected Special Collections

Kirkor Minassian Collection

Islamic bookbindings.

Passage from the Koran written in Kufic, an early Arabic script. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress.

In the late 1920s and 1930s the Library acquired Kirkor Minassian (1874?-1944) from a New York art dealer and authority on Near Eastern manuscripts. Includes over 200 items relating to the development of writing and the book arts in the Middle East. There are 71 Islamic book bindings, including one rare fourteenth century example are housed in the Rare Book and Special Collections Division. Most of these Turkish and Persian style bindings appear to date from the seventeenth and eighteenth century.