Gifts of the Sultan: The Arts of Giving at the Islamic Courts

Los Angeles and New Haven, CT: Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Yale University Press, 2011. Cloth, 335 pages, colour illustrations; 32 cm. Catalogue published in conjunction with an exhibition held at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, June 5 to September 5, 2011 and at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, October 23, 2011 to January 15, 2012. Firm binding, clean inside copy. Dust jacket, with light edgewear, protected in a mylar cover. OVERSIZE! No priority/international, except by arrangement. Richly illustrated with colour plates. "The giving of gifts both delights the recipient and pleases the giver. Practiced in all societies, gift exchange has a history as long as humanity. This gloriously illustrated catalogue is the first investigation of gift-giving and its impact on the development of art in the Islamic world. Presenting some 240 rare and costly works of art associated with gift exchanges among the courts of Islam, Byzantium, western Europe, and eastern Asia, the book provides a wide-ranging view of Islamic art and culture from the 8th through the 19th century. At courts across the Islamic world, gift-giving often served as a nexus of art and diplomacy, religion, and interpersonal relations. The book examines the complex interplay between artistic production and gift-based patronage through numerous examples of deluxe, aesthetically pleasing objects either commissioned or repurposed as gifts. Tracing the unique histories of selected artworks, the book also explores how the exchange of luxury objects played a central role in the circulation, emulation, and assimilation of artistic forms within and beyond the Islamic world." - Publisher. CONTENTS: The art of the art of giving at the Islamic courts, by Linda Komaroff; Gift giving in the Iranian tradition, by Michael Morony; On giving to shrines: generosity is a quality of the people of paradis, by Sheila Blair; The enduring present: gifts in medieval Islam and Byzantium, by Anthoy Cutler; Fatimid gifts, by Jonathan Bloom; Gift exchange between Iran, Central Asia and China under the Ming Dynasty, 1368-1644, by Ralph Kauz; Gifts for the Shah: an episode in Hapsburg-Safavid relations during the reigns of Philip III and Abbas I, by Marianna Shreve Simpson; Ottoman gift exchange: royal give and take, by Tim Stanley; Imperial gifts at the court of Hindustan, by Susan Stronge; Graphic documentation of gift exchanges between the Russian court and its islamic counterparts, seventeenth to the nineteenth century, by Edward Kasinec and Robert Davis.. 1st. Hardcover. Fine/Very Good. Folio. Collectible.