Glass From Islamic Lands: The al-Sabah Collection - Hardcover

Carboni, Stefano

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0500976066 ISBN 13: 9780500976067

Publisher: Thames & Hudson, 2001

Synopsis

The wonder and vitality of Islamic glass are revealed in this extraordinary publication, the first major study in over seventy years. Glass objects rarely bear inscriptions that provide vital information, and throughout history they were shipped long distances, often to be discarded or melted and re-formed. In a triumph of patient scholarship, Stefano Carboni draws on a huge range of sources in many languages and from many disciplines in order to overcome these research difficulties. The book is based on the remarkable al-Sabah Collection and includes detailed descriptions of hundreds of objects, accompanied by 250 specially taken color photographs and forty commissioned line drawings. It begins with the legacy of Roman and Sasanian traditions in the early years of Islam and extends well over a thousand years to the last phase of glass production in Mughal India and Safavid and Qajar Iran in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The discussion covers a haunting mixture of glass specific to a particular time and place, such as the enameled and gilded glass of thirteenth- and fourteenth-century Egypt and Syria with its spectacular decoration technique unsurpassed to the present day; and categories of glass common to both the early and medieval periods in many locations, either undecorated or with applied, molded, and impressed decoration. 250 color and 40 b/w illustrations.

About this title

About the Author:

Stefano Carboni is Associate Curator, Department of Islamic Art, The Metropolitan Museum of Art. He first studied Islamic culture at the University of Venice before obtaining his Ph.D. at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London.

From Publishers Weekly:

Part of the al-Sabah Islamic art collection at the Kuwait National Museum, the hundreds of pieces in Glass from Islamic Lands date from the sixth to the 19th century, originated primarily in the Middle East and Asia and had been exported all over the world before the al-Sabah family assembled them. Stefano Carboni, associate curator at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, has arranged the work chronologically, with 345 color and b&w photographs of lovely glasswork. This catalogue is one of the few U.S. publications devoted to glass from Islamic countries. ( May 28)
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Thames & Hudson
• Publication date: 2001
• ISBN 10: 0500976066
• ISBN 13: 9780500976067
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 416