cloth-covered box comprising 24 individual folios containing various printed and manuscript leaves, including a Chinese 18th-century Bodhi leaf painting, and a Tibetan scroll on dyed-blue paper within a separate box, printed title page and table of contents, catalogue notes printed on each folder, collection label adhered to inside of box reading 'The Joel Spitz Collection, item No.497'

Ex-collection Joel and Maxine Spitz, Trail-Tree, Glencoe, Illinois, purchased in 1928, thence by descent

The present collection of manuscripts reflects a style of academic collecting of the early twentieth century. Whilst no single work in the present collection is of stand-out 'museum' quality or rarity, the value is placed on the scholarship surrounding each individual folio. In each instance, extensive catalogue notes have been published by well known scholars of the day in their respective fields. The full list of the contents page of the collection is reproduced below:

1. Nestorian Syriac manuscript. Printed leaf from a New Testament in Syriac.
2. Armenian manuscript. Printed leaf from an Armenian Book of Rituals.
3. Arabic manuscript in Cufic characters: the Koran.
4. Arabic manuscript: a Book of Devotions. Modern Arabic manuscript: the Koran.
5. Arabic manuscript, 17th century: the Koran. Printed leaf from an Arabic book.
6. Arabic manuscript written in Persia.
7. Turkish manuscript: a book of Travels. Printed leaf from a Turkish dictionary.
8. Persian manuscript: Biographies of noted Sufis.
9. Persian manuscript: the Gulistan of Sa'di. Printed leaf from a Persian textbook.
10. Persian manuscript: the Shahnama of Firdausi. Persian manuscript: the Kamsah of Nizami.
11. Persian manuscript with miniature.
12. Kashmir manuscript with miniature.
13. Sanskrit manuscript. Printed leaf from a New Testament in Sanskrit.
14. Sanskrit manuscript, 18th century. Illuminated Sanskrit manuscript, 19th century.
15. Hindi manuscript: the Chronicles of Rajputana. Printed leaf from a Sakuntala in Hindi.
16. Tibetan Buddhist manuscript. 
17. Mongol manuscript.
18. Burmese palm leaf manuscript. Sinhalese palm leaf manuscript.
19. Siamese manuscript.
20. Javanese manuscript.
21. Chinese miniature.
22. Chinese rubbing.
23. Chinese block printing. Japenese block printing.
24. Japanese Buddhist manuscript, 14th century. Japanese manuscript, 17th century.
25. Japanese color print by Hokusai. Modern Japanese illustration.