340 x 220 mm, hardback, 254 pages, over 200 illustrations
PRICE: £75.00
ISBN: 978 1 903470 53 4
Customers in the US or Canada, CLICK HERE
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. Its 148 colourful images, which are in superb condition, show heroes, mythical beasts and bloody combats and are complemented by particularly sumptuous marginal illumination in gold.
B.W. Robinson relates the history of the Shahnama’s composition, and describes the Windsor manuscript and the circumstances under which it came to Britain. He also provides a lively summary of the narrative to accompany black-and-white illustrations of every painting. Over 50 of these are also shown in full-colour plates. Eleanor Sims discusses in detail the likely attribution of the paintings in the Windsor volume, and compares other 17th-century Shahnama manuscripts; she also examines the wider cultural milieu reflected in the paintings.
The late B.W Robinson (1912–2005) was an authority on many aspects of Islamic and Japanese art. Eleanor Sims, formerly of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, and the editor of Islamic Art, is an independent scholar who has written widely on Iranian art. Manijeh Bayani is a specialist in Arabic and Persian epigraphy.
Remembering Forward presents works by nine of the most prominent Australian Aboriginal artists: Paddy Bedford, Emily Kame Kngwarreye, Queenie McKenzie, Dorothy Napangardi, Rover Thomas, Ronnie Tjampitjinpa, Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri, Tim Leura Tjapaltjarri and Turkey Tolson Tjupurrula. More
Twenty-five years after Captain Cook, the London Missionary Society sent its first representatives to the South Seas. Their goal was to eradicate heathenism and idolatry, but unwittingly, they became agents for the preservation of Polynesian culture through their diligent recording of language and religious practices. They even preserved a number of religious artifacts, which they sent back to England for exhibition in the Mission Museum in London. This book focuses on these artifacts, the idols that avoided the flames. More
In the winter of 1586, Hakob Jughayets'i, one of Armenia's most celebrated illuminators, completed work on a Gospel Book with an extensive and extraordinary programme of narrative miniatures and marginal figures. More
Illuminator, painter, scribe, clerk, teacher, doctor of theology, restorer and binder, Mesrop was one of the greatest Armenian artists of his and following generations. He was prolific, working for at least forty-two years in Sos (New Julfa) from 1608 to 1651. This book will be the first serious study of the forty-six of his manuscripts that have survived. The focus of the book, however, is The Four Gospels, one of the few manuscripts painted entirely by Mesrop’s hand and one of the most extensively illuminated in his oeuvre. More
Detailed biographies describe the lives of twelve collectors of tribal art in Britain, active between 1770 and 1990. These men were rarely field collectors and only occasional travellers, but they were vigorous hunters, for whom the pursuit, handling and possession of such objects was what mattered. More