India Office Private Papers, London
Catalogues covering the holdings of India Office Private Papers, Prints & Drawings, and Photographs within the British Library's Asia, Pacific and Africa Collections. The Library's collections of these materials arise from the many and varied connections between Britain and India from the foundation of the East India Company in 1600 to the achievement of independence by India and Pakistan.

The Asian Art Museum, San Francisco
The Asian Art Museum of San Francisco is one of the largest museums in the Western world devoted exclusively to Asian art, with a collection of over 17,000 artworks spanning 6,000 years of history. Its scope and breadth enables the museum to provide an introduction to all the major traditions of Asian art and culture. The collection ranges from tiny jades to monumental sculptures, paintings, porcelains and ceramics, lacquers, textiles, furniture, arms and armour, puppets, and basketry.

The Rubin Museum of Art (RMA), New York
The Rubin Museum of Art (RMA) in New York is home to a comprehensive collection of art from the Himalayas and surrounding regions. The artistic heritage of this vast and culturally varied area of the world remains relatively obscure. Through changing exhibitions and an array of engaging public programs, RMA offers opportunities to explore the artistic legacy of the Himalayan region and to appreciate its place in the context of world cultures. The RMA collection consists of paintings, sculptures, and textiles. Although works of art range in date over two millennia, most reflect major periods and schools of Himalayan art from the 12th century onward.

Bibliotheca Alexandrina, Alexandria
The Library of Alexandria seeks to recapture the spirit of the ancient Library of Alexandria. It prides itself on a collection encompassing many subjects. From the Arts to Zoology, the BA collection strives for a richness in its intellectual wealth, while trying to meet the specific needs of its patrons. It is to meet these diverse demands and achieve a certain balance that the BA has developed a collection development policy that specifies the levels of intensity in collecting library materials. The policy lays the principles that govern the selection and retention of the library holdings and of the library's acquisition priorities.

Chester Beatty Library, Dublin
The Chester Beatty Library is an art museum and library which houses the great collection of manuscripts, miniature paintings, prints, drawings, rare books and some decorative arts assembled by Sir Alfred Chester Beatty (1875-1968). The Library's exhibitions open a window on the artistic treasures of the great cultures and religions of the world with its rich collection from countries across Asia, the Middle East, North Africa and Europe.

Egyptian papyrus texts, beautifully illuminated copies of the Qur'an, the Bible, European medieval and renaissance manuscripts are among the highlights. Turkish and Persian miniatures and striking Buddhist paintings are also on display, as are Chinese dragon robes and Japanese woodblock prints. In its diversity, the collection captures much of the richness of human creative expression from about 2700 BC to the present day.

Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, Mass.

Indian art collection: Sculpture, textiles, ceramics and metalwork, brought back from India and South-East Asia to Salem by prominent merchants and global entrepreneurs, formed the basis of the PEM collection in 1799. This is the nation's foremost collection of important Tibetan and Nepalese works and 19th- and 20th-century Bhutanese textile arts. PEM has one of the leading collections of Indian art from the 18th century to the present - including the most important collection of contemporary Indian art outside of India. The Herwitz Gallery, named in honor of pioneering collectors Chester and Davida Herwitz, is the first American museum gallery dedicated to the modern and contemporary Indian art.

Asian Export art collection: Asian export art reflects the complex and fascinating interaction between artistic and cultural traditions of East and West. A 12-panel lacquer screen made for Sir John Eccleston of the East India Company and Queen Victoria's embroidered Chinese shawl are among the masterworks created between the 15th and 20th centuries. Early blue-and-white porcelain, an Indo-Portuguese Christ child encrusted with rock crystal and gems, and a superlative ivory-inlaid writing desk convey the broad scope of expression and exquisite craftsmanship in the world's most comprehensive collection of decorative art made in Asia for export to the West.

The Arthur M. Sackler and Freer Gallery of Art: the National Museums of Asian Art at the Smithsonian Institution, Washington
Arts of the Islamic World: Freer and Sackler galleries have one of the finest collections of Islamic art in the U.S., particularly strong in ceramics and illustrated manuscripts. Highlights include:

• An important collection of ceramics from the 9th–13th century, representing a variety of shapes, techniques, and designs, primarily from Iran and the Arab world
• Egyptian and Syrian metalwork from the 13th century, including two pieces decorated with Christian imagery
• A collection of 9th–19th-century Korans (intact volumes and detached folios) from Iran, the Arab world, and Turkey
• 14th-century Syrian glass
• A distinguished collection of illustrated and illuminated manuscripts from Iran and the Arab world, including the Divan (Collected poems) of Sultan Ahmad Jalayir, ca. 1400; Haft Awrang (Seven Thrones) by Jami, dated 1556–66; and six illustrations from the 14th-century Mongol Shahnama (Book of Kings), one of the most important illustrated texts of the Islamic world
• Some one-hundred 19th-century Central Asia ikats from the Guido Goldman Collection.

South Asian and Himalayan Collection: The galleries’ South Asian and Himalayan collections illuminate these richly diverse sacred traditions as well as the secular arts of the Mughal and Rajput courts. Highlights include:

• A Gandharan frieze illustrating the life of Buddha (late 2nd–3d century)
• A small but superb collection of Chola bronzes (Hindu temple figures from the 10th–14th century), including an image of Queen Sembiyan Mahadevi as the Goddess Parvati
• Exquisite paintings made for the Mughal and Rajput courts of North India (16th–19th century)
• The Freer Ramayana, an illustrated manuscript of the great Hindu epic painted for a Mughal nobleman
• A significant collection of 12th–19th-century Buddhist art from Nepal and Tibet, including a larger-than-life Nepalese wooden bodhisattva and a Tibetan thangka
• Company School works (drawings and paintings by Indian artists for British patrons, 18th–19th century).

Museu Calouste Gulbenkian, Lisbon

Eastern Islamic Art: Calouste Gulbenkian's interest in artistic production from Persia, Turkey, Syria, the Caucasus and India, dating from the twelfth to the eighteenth centuries, is very much in evidence. The numerous objects on display include carpets, fabrics, illuminated manuscripts, book bindings, mosque lamps, painted tiles and ceramics, namely from Iznik.

The Alkazi Foundation for the Arts, New Delhi
The Alkazi Foundation for the Arts (AFA) is a registered charitable trust based in New Delhi, primarily dedicated to the exploration and study of the cultural history of India. Over the past 30 years, Ebrahim Alkazi, the Foundation’s Chairman and Director, has amassed a private collection of C19th photographs known as the Alkazi Collection of Photography. The collection is housed in the AFA, which carries out research on this extensive holding, in preparation for a continuing series of scholarly publications of which Lucknow: City of Illusion (2006) was the first.

The Alkazi Collection of Photography (ACP): The Alkazi Collection of Photography is an archive of 19th and early 20th century photographic prints from South and South East Asia, amounting to over 90,000 images, located in Delhi, London and New York to facilitate research.

These vintage prints document the progress of socio-political life in the subcontinent, through the inter-disciplinary fields of architecture, anthropology, topography and archaeology, starting from the 1840s and leading up to the rise of modern India and the Independence Movement of the 1920s, 30s & 40s.

In addition, the collection holds images that reflect India’s cross-border relations with Nepal, Burma, Ceylon and the rest of South East and East Asia. The proliferation of images highlights the early development of photographic studios and the expansion of official photography under British administration.

Some of the prominent photographers featured in the collection include Felix Beato, Linnaeus Tripe, Alexander Greenlaw, Samuel Bourne, John Edward Saché and Lala Deen Dayal among others.