David J. Roxburgh – författare

The diverse and beautiful art of Qajar Iran (1779–1925) has long been understudied and underappreciated. This insightful publication reassesses Qajar art, particularly its four principal mediums—lacquer, painting and drawing on paper, lithography, and photography—and their intertwined development. The Qajar era saw the rise of new technologies and the incorporation of mass-produced items imported from Europe, Russia, and India. These cultural changes sparked a shift in the Iranian art world, as artists produced printed and photographic images and also used these widely disseminated mediums as sources for their paintings on paper and in lacquer. Technologies of the Image illustrates dozens of Qajar works, including sketches and designs from Harvard’s extraordinary album of artists’ drawings, photographs by Ali Khan Vali, and stunning Persian lacquer from private collections. The book considers Qajar art as the product of a rapidly changing art world in which images moved across and between media, highlighting objects that span contexts of production and patronage, from royal to sub-royal.  Distributed for the Harvard Art MuseumsExhibition Schedule:Harvard Art Museums(08/26/17–01/07/18)

A spectacular study of calligraphy, the most esteemed form of visual and textual expression in the Islamic world, through a storied collection of Qur’an manuscripts  Spanning more than a millennium, from the seventh through the nineteenth century, Sea of Ink, Forest of Pens: The Art of the Qur’an in the Hossein Afshar Collection sheds new light on the production of deluxe Qur’an manuscripts across Islamic lands through sixty-four exemplary works. The vast majority of these pieces are published for the first time in this richly illustrated book, which opens with a historical essay tracing important developments and stylistic trends represented in the collection. Renowned Islamic art scholar David Roxburgh examines the evolution and variations of scripts, beginning with the earliest recordings and reflecting on subsequent transformations through key single folios, bifolios, and bound Qur’an manuscripts. He also delves into the art of Qur’anic illumination, and the publication includes a richly illustrated glossary to guide the reader.  Distributed for The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston

Muqarnas: An Annual on the Visual Cultures of the Islamic World is sponsored by The Aga Khan Program for Islamic Architecture at Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts.In Muqarnas articles are published on all aspects of Islamic visual culture, historical and contemporary, as well as articles dealing with unpublished textual primary sources.