Forms part of the Robert Garrett Collection (C0744).
Summary note
A pictorial prayer books that contain the catechism of the Catholic Church in picture writing. In this manuscript, as in most surviving examples, the drawings have little relationship to the traditional forms of Mexican Indian manuscript painting. The document has 51 illustrated pages and one gloss. Also there is a curious legend written on a preliminary leaf "Alaja preciosal cogida al enemigo en Sn. Yago del Cerro".
Notes
Decoration: watercolor illustrations throughout.
Reproduction note
"An Otomí catechism." with introduction by Gillett G. Griffin (Princeton, 1968).
Binding note
Paper wrappers, sewn.
Language note
Texts in Otomí and Spanish.
Provenance
The manuscript is undoubtedly one of several manuscripts acquired by J.M.A. Aubin from Francisco Pérez about 1830-1840 (see Aubin, quoted in Boban, 1891, 2: 178,181). It was listed, together with the other "Testerian" manuscript (no. 3b) in the Garrett collection, as lot 238 of a Sotheby and Co. catalog of November, 1936, and four of its pages were reproduced in that catalog (Sotheby and Co., 1936: 35 and plate labeled "lot 238"). It was purchased by Garrett in November of that year through or from Bernard Quaritch. On the verso side of a preliminary leaf is Garrett's accession mark, "R.G., Nov. 1936". The Princeton manuscript was no. 3 of List No. 3 of books and manuscripts deposited by Garrett in the Institute for Advanced Study in 1942.
Source acquisition
Gift Robert Garrett, 1949.
Publications about
For a study of this manuscript, with transcriptions, see David Wright Carr, Manuscritos Otomíes de la Biblioteca Newberry y la Biblioteca de la Universidad de Princeton (2006).
Cite as
Garrett Mesoamerican Manuscripts, no. 3a, Manuscripts Division, Dept. of Rare Books and Special Collections, Princeton University Library.
Other title(s)
Testerian manuscripts
Otomí catechism
In
Robert Garrett Collection, ca. 1340 B.C.-1900s
OCLC
60355651
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