Diez Albums

Julia Gonnella has studied Islamic Art and Archaeology at the School of Oriental and African Studies, London and took her PhD at the University of Tübingen. For many years she has been excavating in Syria, particularly in Aleppo, and was teaching at the Free University in Berlin. Since 2009 she is curator at the Museum of Islamic Art and has organized numerous exhibitions, including Heroic Times. Thousand years of Shahnama (Berlin 2011 with Christoph Rauch), and How Islamic Art came to Berlin. The Museum Director and Collector Friedrich Sarre (Berlin 2015).Friederike Weis, PhD (2005), Freie Universität Berlin. She worked as Assistant Curator at the Museum für Indische Kunst in Berlin, held several fellowships and co-curated the exhibition Joseph and Zulaikha: Relations between India, Europe and Persia in the Berlin Kupferstichkabinett in 2014. She is a DFG-researcher at the Staatsbibliothek, with the project: „Autonomous pictures? Figural motifs in Persian drawings and paintings in the Diez albums”.Christoph Rauch studied Arabic and Islamic studies at Leipzig. Since 2004 he has worked at the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, where he was appointed head of the Oriental Department in 2010. He co-organized several conferences on manuscript collections and the history of Oriental studies, most recently the conference “Studies on Johann Gottfried Wetzstein (1815-1905): Manuscripts, Politics and Oriental Studies” in 2015. He is co-editor of The Yemeni Manuscript Tradition (Brill 2015).

"The book is a testament to the importance of collaboration among scholars with different types of expertise (historians, art historians and chemists; specialists of Islamic and Chinese art, Ottomanists and Persianists; scholars from diffrent generations) and multiple approaches to the history of art. Together these twenty-two scholars finally do justice to the complex history and contents of the famous Diez albums, making them comprehensible to the scholarly community." - Emine Fetvaci, Boston University, in: Journal of the History and Culture of the Middle East 95/2 (2018)

• Julia Gonnella, Friederike Weis, Christoph Rauch IntroductionThe Albums and Heinrich Friedrich von DiezJulian RabyContents & Contexts: Re-Viewing the Diez AlbumsDavid RoxburghMemorabilia of Asia: Diez’s Albums RevisitedChristoph RauchThe Oriental Manuscripts and Albums of Heinrich Friedrich von Diez and the Perception of Persian Painting in his TimeThe Diez and the Topkapı AlbumsLâle UluçThe Perusal of the Topkapı Albums: A Story of ConnoisseurshipZeren TanındıRepetition of Illustrations in the Topkapı Palace and Diez AlbumsSimon RettigJaʿfar Tabrizi, “Second Inventor” of the Nastaʿlīq Script, and the Diez AlbumsThe Albums’ Contents: From the Mongols to the TimuridsCharles MelvilleThe Illustration of the Turko-Mongol Era in the Berlin Diez AlbumsYuka KadoiThe Mongols EnthronedClaus-Peter HaaseLater Mongol and Early Timurid Representations of Rulers in the Diez Albums – Reflecting Changes of Ceremonial and StyleBarbara BrendThe Depiction of Horses in the Diez AlbumsFiliz Çakır PhillipBrave Warriors of DiezThe Albums’ Contents: Drawings and SketchesYves PorterModels, Sketches and Pounced Drawings in the Diez Albums: First Steps in the Making of Illustrated ManuscriptsFriederike WeisA Persianate Drawing of the Tazza Farnese: a Work by Muhammad Khayyam?Oliver HahnScientific Investigation of Carbon Inks – an Analytical ChallengeRepatriations: the Diez Albums as a Source for Reconstructing Lost ArtRobert HillenbrandThe Great Mongol Shāhnāma: Some Proposed RepatriationsBernard O’KaneThe Great Jalayirid ShāhnāmaMassumeh FarhadThe Divan of Sultan Ahmad Jalayir and the Diez and Istanbul Albums Karin RührdanzIllustrated Messages of Love in the Diez AlbumsEurope, China and Istanbul: The Albums in a Broader PerspectiveGülru NecipoğluPersianate Images Between Europe and China: The “Frankish Manner” in the Diez and Topkapı Albums, c. 1350-1450Ching-Ling WangIconographic Turn: On Chinese Buddhist and Daoist Iconography in the Diez AlbumsSerpil BağcıThe Ottomans in Diez’s CollectionAppendix I: Conference ProgrammeJulia GonnellaAppendix II: Masterpieces from the Serail: The Albums of Heinrich Friedrich von Diez (1751-1817)List of ContributorsCreditsIndex of Names, Places and Subjects