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Annotated Copy of Persia and the Persian Question by George Curzon, with Inserted Papers [268r] (538/1814)
The record is made up of 2 volumes with inserts (898 folios). It was created in 1892-1924. It was written in English, Urdu and German. The original is part of the British Library: India Office The department of the British Government to which the Government of India reported between 1858 and 1947. The successor to the Court of Directors. Records and Private Papers Documents collected in a private capacity. .
Transcription
This transcription is created automatically. It may contain errors.
TEHERAN
321
3Ve all
tile;
re
t0
eacock^
M °gul hag
n ,° n i ds - other;
llad ^Ported
’ ancl it rnij
' lG Peacock 1
Hindustan,
Hon in the a
he same cent
^vernier) at
gh pillars or
amonds. It
ee at that tir
is
a
3t answerable to the
i are two peacocks
are the work of a
kman.
•one; for the latter
:e Bernier likely to
listaken its winged
onviction that the
nnection, if any at
hi, I turned tocon-
alcolm 2 that Nadh
3 C k Throne of the
f it made in other'
rone in l 809 ’
back are W
r peacock'
3 harutJ»
jthem w"
r rate) rljl)lti
jewels. This left two Peacock Thrones to be demolished between
his death and the end of the last century, a catastrophe which in
the anarchy and violence of those times would have been in itself
no unlikely occurrence; but it left the Takht-i-Taous unexplained,
as under no circumstances could the latter be described as a dupli
cate of Tavernier’s original. Now, however, I came across a
passage in Fraser’s £ Khorasan’ in which he mentions that an old
Kurd told him in 1822, that ‘when Nadir Shah was murdered
and his camp plundered, the Peacock Throne and the of
Pearls fell into our hands, and were torn in pieces and divided
on the spot.’ Any Kurd might certainly have been trusted to
handle such an object as the Peacock Throne in the unceremonious
manner here described, and, assuming the veracity of this par
ticular Kurd, I witnessed with some delight the disappearance of
the real Peacock Throne, or one of the two, from the scene.
A phrase in IMorier’s account had now set me thinking that
the Takht-i-Taous at Teheran must be a modern structure after
os't'on ad ' same passage which I have quoted in a
o/the 110n footnote, he adds: ‘ It (i.e. the throne) is said to have
usurper ^ 100)000
tomans
10,000 Persian dinars, or a gold coin of that value.
’ (equivalent at the beginning of
the century to about 100,000L) ; 1 herein clearly implying that an
account or a tradition of its cost prevailed at deheian, which was
far more likely to be the case with a new than with an old fabric,
and which was extremely unlikely to have been the case with an
object carried off in plunder from a remote country seventy years
before. At this stage, accordingly, I referred my doubts for solu
tion to Teheran itself, and after an interval of some weeks was
interested and (I may confess) rejoiced to hear, on the authoiity
of the Grand Yizier and the former Minister for Foreign Affairs, 4
that, as I suspected, the Takht-i-Taous is not an Indian throne at
all. It was constructed by Mohammed Husein Khan, Sadr (or
High Priest) of Isfahan, for Path Ali Shah when the latter married
an Isfahani young lady, whose popular sobriquet, for some unex
plained reason, was Taous Khanum or the Peacock l ady. dhe
King is further said to have been so much delighted with the
throne, that it was made a remarkably prominent feature in the
1 I understand, however, that it is now valued at nearly 200,000Z.
2 When I was in Teheran I had in vain asked the same questions of the
custodian of the treasury, and of every Persian official whom I met, but without
eliciting any satisfactory response.
VOL. I.
Y
About this item
- Content
These two volumes are George Curzon's own personal annotated copies of both volumes of his book Persia and the Persian Question , which was published in 1892. Alongside the volumes are various loose papers relating to Persia [Iran], consisting of the following: received correspondence; newspaper cuttings; publishers' press releases; cuttings from various booksellers' catalogues; various journal and magazine articles; two items of printed official British correspondence; several prints of photographs and sketches; and a few handwritten notes by Curzon.
In most cases these papers, which range in date from 1892 to 1924, relate to the chapters in the book where they were originally inserted, suggesting that they were kept by Curzon with the intention of using them to inform a revised edition of the book.
Of particular note among the small amount of correspondence are two letters received by Curzon in 1914 and 1915 from retired schoolmaster and Islamic scholar Sayyid Mazhar Hasan Musawi of Saharanpur, Uttar Pradesh, India (ff 5-9 and ff 44-53). These letters, which are written in Urdu and are accompanied by English translations, discuss in detail several inaccuracies found in the Urdu version of Persia and the Persian Question .
The various prints of photographs and sketches, which were originally inserted into volume two, are of different locations in the Gulf region. Several of these appear to have been produced in preparation for the publication of the second volume of John Gordon Lorimer's Gazetteer of the Persian Gulf The historical term used to describe the body of water between the Arabian Peninsula and Iran. , Oman and Central Arabia (i.e. the 'Geographical and Statistical' section) in 1908, as they are identical to the versions found in that volume.
Also of note among the loose papers are an illustrated article from Country Life dated 5 June 1920, entitled 'The People of Persia' (ff 36-37), and a printed family tree of the Shah of Persia [Aḥmad Shah Qājār], produced in preparation of his visit to Britain in 1919 (f 233).
Volume one of Persia and the Persian Question contains a map of Persia, Afghanistan and Beluchistan [Balochistan], which is folded inside the front cover (f 1).
The German language material consists of a publisher's press release for two books authored by German archaeologist Ernst Emil Herzfeld (ff 29-30).
- Extent and format
- 2 volumes with inserts (898 folios)
- Physical characteristics
Foliation: this shelfmark consists of two physical volumes. The foliation sequence commences at the first folio of volume one (1-463), and terminates at the last folio of volume two (ff 464-898); these numbers are written in pencil, are circled, and are located in the top right corner of the recto The front of a sheet of paper or leaf, often abbreviated to 'r'. side of each folio. Each volume contains a large number of loose leaves, which have been foliated in the order that they were inserted into the volume; for conservation reasons, these loose folios have been removed from the volume and stored separately. The foliation sequence does not include the front and back covers of the two volumes.
Pagination: the file also contains an original printed pagination sequence.
- Written in
- English, Urdu and German in Latin and Arabic script View the complete information for this record
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Annotated Copy of Persia and the Persian Question by George Curzon, with Inserted Papers [268r] (538/1814), British Library: India Office Records and Private Papers, Mss Eur F111/33, in Qatar Digital Library <https://www.qdl.qa/archive/81055/vdc_100157213844.0x000091> [accessed 17 June 2026]
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- Reference
- Mss Eur F111/33
- Title
- Annotated Copy of Persia and the Persian Questionby George Curzon, with Inserted Papers
- Pages
- 54r:135v, 147r:149v, 158r:180v, 183r:221v, 224r:224v, 227r:246v, 248r:257v, 259r:260v, 268r:362v, 364r:364v, 367r:388v, 390r:400v, 402r:416v, 419r:432v, 434r:444v, 448r:462v, 464r:471v, 475r:481v, 483r:513v, 516r:525v, 527r:544v, 546r:563v, 566r:598v, 600r:622v, 624r:656v, 658r:665v, 667r:675v, 678r:684v, 687r:688v, 691r:691v, 693r:693v, 695r:708v, 711r:721v, 724r:726v, 728r:729v, 731r:736v, 742r:742v, 746r:757v, 759r:761v, 763r:763v, 765r:765v, 772r:777v, 780r:789v, 793r:794v, 797r:809v, 811r:821v, 825r:840v, 843r:898v
- Author
- Curzon, George Nathaniel, 1st Marquess Curzon of Kedleston
- Usage terms
- Public Domain