Islamic/Middle Eastern
The Eckstein Shahnama: An Ottoman Book of Kings
64 pages, paperback, 300 x 240mm, 125 illustrations
PRICE: £20.00
ISBN: 9780954901455
Customers in the US or Canada, CLICK HERE
By Will Kwiatkowski
The great Persian poet Firdausi’s epic Shahnama, or ‘Books of Kings’, written at the turn of the eleventh century CE, is a seamless tapestry of historical and legendary material prominently featuring battles and individual struggles with fierce demons and enemy champions. "This book is a vital contribution to the understanding of Asiatic art, its confluences, and its narrative axes in time, space, form and stylistic traditions. It helps to connect the art of the region to its ancestry as well as to explore its trajectories and their diverse meanderings theoretically ..." (Sixteenth-Century Journal, Fall 2009).
The first known illustrations of the poem date to the early fourteenth century. The splendidly illustrated and illuminated late sixteenth-century Eckstein Shahnama (so called from a distinguished previous owner, Bernard Eckstein) is one of an important group of so-called ‘truncated’ Shahnamas which end Firdausi’s narrative with Alexander the Great. These manuscripts were long regarded as Persian, but new research suggests that, though the text is Persian and the style of the painting is apparently Persian, they were actually produced in imitation of Persian examples by Turkish workshops.
This richly illustrated study confirms the Ottoman origin of this and other manuscripts in the group and demonstrates the Eckstein Shahnama in particular to be a representative example of Ottoman manuscript painting and to have had itself a significant influence on later production. This joins a series of outstanding publications on Islamic manuscripts by Sam Fogg.
The necropolis of Shah-e Zende at Samarkand represents a summit in the art of ceramic wall coverings in the Islamic world. Few studies have focused on the funerary ensemble of the Shah-e Zende and this is the first to describe these monuments in all the details of their decoration and its techniques and motifs, as well as the different types of ceramics used and their composition. Perched on a steep cliff overlooking the ancient city of Samarkand, today the ghost town of Afrasiyab, the necropolis remains largely unknown to art historians and certainly to the public. More
Given the status of the Qur‘an as the eternal and uncreated word of Allah, the art of the pen became the focus of an extraordinary energy in the Muslim world. Ink and Gold charts the development of Islamic calligraphy – the noblest, most stylized and original of the Islamic arts – over a period of some 1200 years, from its beginnings in the Arabian Peninsula. More
The selection consists of Qur’ans, illustrated Islamic manuscripts and scientific and religious manuscripts. All are handsomely illustrated and fully discussed. The manuscripts are from all parts of the Islamic world and represent the finest achievements of the form. More
On the far Eastern edge of the Christian world – often isolated or overwhelmed by Christian cultures – the Armenians have produced a distinctive artistic tradition. The collection assembled here opens with the objects from the great medieval periods in Greater Armenia and the Kingdom of Cilicia. Later centuries are represented by paintings and books created in communities dominated by other cultures or far from the homeland, like the series of manuscripts here from Constantinople. More
This book is devoted to a monumental and superbly illuminated very large early fourteenth-century Mamluk Qur’an in muhaqqaq script. It constitutes the final part (Juz’ 30) of a superb two-volume Qur’an of which the first volume is preserved in the National Museum in Damascus while the second volume, from which the present section originates, is widely dispersed. More
The Shahnama (‘Book of Kings’), which chronicles the history of Iran from the Creation to the Islamic conquest, was written by the poet Firdawsi at the turn of the 11th century. Its central importance to Iranian culture is reflected in the thousands of copies made since then, many superbly illustrated and produced for royal and other powerful patrons. One of these copies, presented to Queen Victoria in 1839, is one of the finest treasures among the collection of Islamic manuscripts now in the Royal Library at Windsor Castle. More
The Islamic manuscripts and manuscript leaves gathered here are often of great antiquity, ranging from the eighth to the sixteenth century; most are in Kufic. There are also pottery, metalwork and woodwork examples bearing calligraphy. An impressive illustration of the many beauties of Islamic script. More
