This book discusses the decoration types of Sephardic illuminated Bibles in their broader historical, and social context in an era of cultural transition in Iberia and culture struggle within Spanish Jewry.

This scholarly work elucidates the symbolism and entire allegorical system of the Islamic painting of the Golden Age between the 14th and 17th centuries.

In Esoteric Images: Decoding the Late Herat School of Painting Tawfiq Daʿadli decodes the pictorial language which flourished in the city of Herat, modern Afghanistan, under the rule of the last Timurid ruler, Sultan Husayn Bayqara (r.1469-1506). This study focuses on one illustrated manuscript of a poem entitled Khamsa by the Persian poet Nizami Ganjavi, kept in the British Library under code Or.6810. Tawfiq Daʿadli decodes the paintings, reveals the syntax behind them and thus deciphers the message of the whole manuscript. The book combines scholarly efforts to interpret theological-political lessons embedded in one of the foremost Persian schools of art against the background of the court dynamic of an influential medieval power in its final years.

Demonstrating that similarities between Jewish and Christian art in the Middle Ages were more than coincidental, Cultural Exchange meticulously combines a wide range of sources to show how Jews and Christians exchanged artistic and material culture. Joseph Shatzmiller focuses on communities in northern Europe, Iberia, and other Mediterranean societies where Jews and Christians coexisted for centuries, and he synthesizes the most current research to describe the daily encounters that enabled both societies to appreciate common artistic values. Detailing the transmission of cultural sensibilities in the medieval money market and the world of Jewish money lenders, this book examines objects pawned by peasants and humble citizens, sacred relics exchanged by the clergy as security for loans, and aesthetic goods given up by the Christian well-to-do who required financial assistance. The work also explores frescoes and decorations likely painted by non-Jews in medieval and early modern Jewish homes located in Germanic lands, and the ways in which Jews hired Christian artists and craftsmen to decorate Hebrew prayer books and create liturgical objects. Conversely, Christians frequently hired Jewish craftsmen to produce liturgical objects used in Christian churches. With rich archival documentation, Cultural Exchange sheds light on the social and economic history of the creation of Jewish and Christian art, and expands the general understanding of cultural exchange in brand-new ways.

This volume deals with the formative period of Islamic art (to c. 950), and the different approaches to studying it. Individual essays deal with architecture, ceramics, coins, textiles, and manuscripts, as well as with such broad questions as the supposed prohibition of images, and the relationships between sacred and secular art. An introductory essay sets each work in context; it is complemented by a bibliography for further reading.

This book focusses on a historical and cultural aspect of medieval Islam: the market inspection (hisba) in the Muslim state and its impact on the development of arts and crafts. It is a pioneer work in Islamic studies in which this aspect is being studied from over-all historical and cultural points of view. The study deals with two main issues: the history of market inspection in medieval Islam where it tries to highlight some additional notes concerning the origin of the institution of market inspection in Islam and also emphasizes its cultural role in the Muslim society. The second issue focuses on the impact of the institution of market inspection on the development of the visual arts and crafts in medieval Islam. Methodologically, the study surveys the references to the crafts in the manuals of hisba and compares them with the information about these crafts as they run in reality.

An alternate approach to Islamic art emphasizing literary over historical contexts and reception over production in visual arts and music.