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ARABIA - ANTIQUITIES MUNCHERJEE (KAIKY, Collector) "A Marvellous Collection of Rare, Authentic, Genuine, Ancient, Humarites & Sabeans Antiques of Ancient Southern Arabia... 2400 Years Old. In the Possession of Kaiky Muncherjee, Steamer Point, Aden. Open to Wholesale Sale" [printed title label on upper cover], [Bombay, 1925] image 1
ARABIA - ANTIQUITIES MUNCHERJEE (KAIKY, Collector) "A Marvellous Collection of Rare, Authentic, Genuine, Ancient, Humarites & Sabeans Antiques of Ancient Southern Arabia... 2400 Years Old. In the Possession of Kaiky Muncherjee, Steamer Point, Aden. Open to Wholesale Sale" [printed title label on upper cover], [Bombay, 1925] image 2
Lot 2

ARABIA - ANTIQUITIES
MUNCHERJEE (KAIKY, Collector) "A Marvellous Collection of Rare, Authentic, Genuine, Ancient, Humarites & Sabeans Antiques of Ancient Southern Arabia... 2400 Years Old. In the Possession of Kaiky Muncherjee, Steamer Point, Aden. Open to Wholesale Sale" [printed title label on upper cover], [Bombay, 1925]

11 November 2015, 13:00 GMT
London, Knightsbridge

Sold for £2,500 inc. premium

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ARABIA - ANTIQUITIES

MUNCHERJEE (KAIKY, Collector) "A Marvellous Collection of Rare, Authentic, Genuine, Ancient, Humarites & Sabeans Antiques of Ancient Southern Arabia... 2400 Years Old. In the Possession of Kaiky Muncherjee, Steamer Point, Aden. Open to Wholesale Sale" [printed title label on upper cover], 33 gelatin silver prints (most approximately c.210 x 160mm.), most corner-mounted with typed caption label beneath, one in 3 sheets mounted, an 8-page printed introduction to the collection pasted-in (illustrated with 6 photographic illustrations; another copy loosely inserted), contents working loose, contemporary maroon cloth, spine repaired, 4to (272 x 250mm.), [Bombay, 1925]

Footnotes

A "trade catalogue" of the vast collection of southern Arabian antiquities compiled by the Kaiky Muncherjee, a Parsi Indian trader resident in Aden in the early twentieth century. The catalogue was seemingly issued to entice a sale en bloc ("wholesale sale, communication solicited") to an American institution, Muncherjee stating that "the major portion of my collection awaits reciphering [sic] and when so treated, will, of course, fathom the heart of the past which is of the greatest importance". As such, whilst listing at length both Arab and foreign scholars who vouch for the authenticity of the collection, the key selling point is a series of photographs showing the collection, tightly packed, on wooden shelves, always with labels emphasising "2400 years old". The collection - held in Aden (the brochure printed for Muncherjee in Bombay) - was not sold at this time. The British archaeologist Sir Lawrence Kirwan examined the collection in 1939, before it was eventually purchased by the government of Aden shortly after Muncherjee's death in 1955.

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