"The splendor of Islamic glass is revealed in this publication, the first major study of the subject in over seventy years. Glass objects rarely bear inscriptions that provide vital information, and being so readily portable, they have throughout history been carried far from their place of origin. In a feat of patient scholarship, Stefano Carboni draws on a hugh range of sources in many languages and from many disciplines to produce this comprehensive history of Islamic glassmaking. The book is a catalogue of the superb al-Sabah Collection in Kuwait and includes clear and informative introductions to each period, as well as detailed descriptions of some 500 individual objects and fragments, accompanied by hundreds of colour photographs and specially commissioned line drawings. It begins with the legacy of Roman and Sasanian Persian 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 huge assortment of glass forms and decorative techniques, including the enamelled and gilded glass of thirteenth- and fourteenth-century Egypt and Syria, still unsurpassed in its magnificence, as well as many lesser-known categories of glass common to both the early and medieval periods in many locations, ranging from the undecorated to those with applied, cut, moulded or impressed decoration."--Back cover.

This catalogue accompanies an exhibition that brings together more than 150 glass objects representing twelve centuries of Islamic glassmaking. Included are the principal types of pre-industrial glass from Egypt, the Middle East, and India in a comprehensive array of shapes, colors, and techniques such as glassblowing, the use of molds, the manipulation of molten glass with tools, and the application of molten glass to complete or decorate an object. -- Metropolitan Museum of Art website.

Students and scholars of the Italian Renaissance easily fall under the spell of its achievements: its self-confident humanism, its groundbreaking scientific innovations, its ravishing artistic production. Yet many of the developments in Italian ceramics and glass were made possible by Italy's proximity to the Islamic world. The Arts of Fire underscores how central the Islamic influence was on this luxury art of the Italian Renaissance. Published to coincide with an exhibition at the Getty Museum on view from May 4 to August 5, 2004, The Arts of Fire demonstrates how many of the techniques of glass and ceramic production and ornamentation were first developed in the Islamic East between the eighth and twelfth centuries. These techniques - enamel and gilding on glass and tin-glaze and lustre on ceramics - produced brilliant and colourful decoration that was a source of awe and admiration, transforming these crafts, for the first time, into works of art and true luxury commodities. Essays by Catherine Hess, George Saliba, and Linda Komaroff demonstrate early modern Europe's debts to the Islamic world and help us better understand the interrelationships of cultures over time.

From 828, when Venetian merchants carried home from Alexandria the stolen relics of St. Mark, to the fall of the Venetian Republic to Napoleon in 1797, the visual arts in Venice were dramatically influenced by Islamic art. Because of its strategic location on the Mediterranean, Venice had long imported objects from the Near East through channels of trade, and it flourished during this particular period as a commercial, political, and diplomatic hub. This monumental book examines Venice's rise as the "bazaar of Europe" and how and why the city absorbed artistic and cultural ideas that originated in the Islamic world. Venice and the Islamic World, 828–1797 features a wide range of fascinating images and objects, including paintings and drawings by familiar Venetian artists such as Bellini, Carpaccio, and Tiepolo; beautiful Persian and Ottoman miniatures; and inlaid metalwork, ceramics, lacquer ware, gilded and enameled glass, textiles, and carpets made in the Serene Republic and the Mamluk, Ottoman, and Safavid Empires. Together these exquisite objects illuminate the ways Islamic art inspired Venetian artists, while also highlighting Venice's own views toward its neighboring region. Fascinating essays by distinguished scholars and conservators offer new historical and technical insights into this unique artistic relationship between East and West.

Europeans are in denial. Against a backdrop of Islamophobia, they are increasingly distancing themselves from their cultural debt to the Muslim world. But while the legacy of Islam and the Middle East is in danger of being airbrushed out of Western history, its traces can still be detected in some of Europe's most recognisable monuments, from Notre-Dame to St Paul's Cathedral. In this comprehensively illustrated book, Diana Darke sets out to redress the balance, revealing the Arab and Islamic roots of Europe's architectural heritage. She tracks the transmission of key innovations from the great capitals of Islam's early empires, Damascus and Baghdad, via Muslim Spain and Sicily into Europe. Medieval crusaders, pilgrims and merchants from Europe later encountered Arab Muslim culture in journeys to the Holy Land. In more recent centuries, that same route through modern-day Turkey connected Ottoman culture with the West, leading Sir Christopher Wren himself to believe that Gothic architecture should more rightly be called 'the Saracen style', because of its Islamic origins. Recovering this overlooked story within the West's long history of borrowing from the Islamic world, Darke sheds new light on Europe's buildings and offers rich insights into the possibilities of cultural exchange.

In 1935-40 and again in 1947, the Iranian Expedition of the Metropolitan Museum excavated the city of Nishapur, a flourishing center in medieval times located in eastern Iran. This is the fourth volume in a series dedicated to publishing the finds. It presents a survey of glass of the early Islamic period throughout the Near East, discusses the significance of the Nishapur glass findings, and provides a catalogue of the finds with a focus on glass-decorating techniques. Map and site plans, a glossary, a concordance, and an extensive bibliography are included. Annotation copyright by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

This is the second volume (of hte projected series of three of) in the catalogue of the Islamic glass collection in The Corning Museum of Glass. It is the largest and richest collection of early Islamic Glass in the United States. This volume describes and illustrates 482 objects and fragments made in the Islamic world pbetween the eighth and 14th centuries. Each catalog entry consists of a detailed decription, usually accompanied by a comment on the history and significance of the object and by a listing of similar pieces in other collections. Every object and fragment is illustrated with a color photograph and a line drawing that shows the profile. The book also provides concordances and an extensive bibliography.