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Edward Fitzgerald, The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam (Filtzgerald version), Allahabad: The Indian Press Limited, 1930

Sixteen-page ribbon-bound booklet of Khayyam's quatrains and twelve colour plates done by Asit Kumar Haldar tipped-in on individual thick cardboard sheets with tissue guards bearing the relevant quatrain in red; original silk-covered decorative purpose-built cardboard fold-over box portfolio with decorative gilt titles on both boards and a gilt-and-polychrome illustrated label on rear board and with wooden toggles
Plates: 10.5 x 6.5 in (26.6 x 16.5 cm)
Cardboard mounts: 14.5 x 10 in (36.8 x 25 cm)
Box: 15 x 10.5 in (38.1 x 26.6 cm)
Booklet: 13.5 x 8.5 in (34.2 x 21.5 cm)

MYSTICISM, MODERNISM, AND THE BENGAL RENAISSANCE: ASIT KUMAR HALDAR’S VISIONARY RUBÁIYÁT, ALLAHABAD 1930

This rare and visually arresting edition of The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám, illustrated by Asit Kumar Haldar and published by the Indian Press in 1930, exemplifies a moment of profound cultural hybridity in early 20th-century Indian art. Rooted in Edward Fitzgerald’s celebrated 19th-century English rendering of Omar Khayyám’s Persian quatrains, the present edition stands apart for its striking visual reinterpretation through the lens of the Bengal School.

Asit Kumar Haldar, a pivotal figure in the Bengal School of Art and grandnephew of Rabindranath Tagore, brings a distinctly Indian aesthetic to these illustrations. Trained at the Government School of Art, Calcutta, Haldar’s stylised figures and Florentine colour palettes echo influences from Ajanta cave murals and tempera tradition, presenting Khayyam’s quatrains through an indigenous visual idiom rather than Orientalist Western tropes.

Asit Kumar Haldar, a distinguished student of Abanindranath Tagore and one of the first Indian artists to exhibit internationally, channels the Ajanta fresco tradition in his delicate yet richly coloured imagery. His twelve interpretive plates evoke mystical landscapes, meditative figures, and symbolic architecture, embodying both poetic sensuality and metaphysical depth. The accompanying tissue guards, printed in red with corresponding quatrains, enhance the reading-viewing experience and underscore the spiritual cadence of the work.

The entire production—ribbon-bound text booklet, loose-mounted plates, and a bespoke presentation box secured with wooden toggles—reflects the aspirations of the Indian Press and its collaborators to craft not merely a book but an artist’s portfolio for collectors and patrons of Indian modernism. The inclusion of a foreword by E.B. Havell, former Principal of the Government School of Art, Calcutta, situates this publication within the broader framework of the Bengal Renaissance, wherein Indian artists reasserted cultural identity through indigenous visual forms.

While many editions of the Rubáiyát emerged in the West with illustrations by Edmund Dulac, Willy Pogány, and others, Haldar’s version is singular for its indigenised visual vocabulary. Rather than Persianising through European exoticism, Haldar internalises Khayyám’s themes through Indian aesthetics—at once spiritual, poetic, and resolutely modern.

Copies of this 1930 edition complete with all elements—the plates, booklet, portfolio, and toggled box—are rare. Most surviving examples lack the booklet or show damage to the fragile mounting or housing. The present copy, preserved in excellent condition and with all components intact, represents one of the finest extant examples of an important and little-known milestone in illustrated Indian publishing.