Bibliographia Iranica

A predominantly bibliographic blog for Iranian Studies

Tag: Art History

  • Dura-Europos: Past, Present, Future

    Dura-Europos: Past, Present, Future

    Brody, Lisa & Anne H. Chen (eds.). 2025. Dura-Europos: Past, Present, Future. Turnhout. Brepols.

    This volume brings together an international and interdisciplinary host of scholars to reflect on the complicated legacies of exploration at the archaeological site of Dura-Europos, situated on the western bank of the Euphrates River near modern Salihiyeh (Syria). A chance discovery after World War I kicked off a series of excavations that would span the next century and whose finds are today housed in collections worldwide, including the Yale University Art Gallery, the Louvre, and the National Museum in Damascus. Dura-Europos exemplifies a multiethnic frontier town at the crossroads of major trade routes. Its textual remains and remarkably-preserved Christian, Jewish, and polytheist religious sanctuaries provide key resources for the study of antiquity and attest to the cross-cultural interconnectivity that was demonstrably central to the ancient world but which has been too often obscured by Eurocentric historiographic traditions and siloed disciplinary divisions.

    Foreign-run, large-scale archaeological campaigns of the early twentieth century, like those at Dura-Europos, have created narratives of power and privilege that often exclude local communities. The significance of these imbalances is entangled with the destruction the site has experienced since the 2011 outbreak of conflict in Syria. As a step toward making knowledge descendant of early excavations more accessible, this volume includes Arabic summaries of each paper, following up on the simultaneous Arabic interpretation provided at the 2022 hybrid conference whose proceedings form the core of this publication. The papers address topics connected to essential themes in relation to Dura-Europos: long-distance trade relations and cross-border interactions in antiquity, including the exchange of technologies, people, and materials; Christianity, Judaism, and other religious practices, and their relations to one another; contemporary trafficking of looted artifacts; cultural heritage and the Islamic State; and the evolving role of museum collections, technologies, and archival materials for research.

  • Emamzadeh Yahya

    Emamzadeh Yahya

    The Emamzadeh Yahya at Varamin: An Online Exhibition of an Iranian Shrine

    امامزاده یحیی ورامین‌: نمایشگاهی آنلاین از زیارتگاهی ایرانی

    This project website was brought to our attention by its curator, Keelan Overton. While it falls outside the scope of our work, we present it here for its innovative approach and valuable contributions to the field. We encourage you to explore the bilingual website to discover its diverse range of content. ~AZ

    The Emamzadeh Yahya shrine complex is simultaneously the sacred tomb of Emamzadeh Yahya (d. 869–70), a destination for ziyarat (pious visitation), an architectural monument of the Ilkhanid period (1256–1353), the main community center and cemetery of the Kohneh Gel neighborhood, a cultural heritage site, and the source of luster tiles displayed in around fifty museums worldwide. In this exhibition, which is also an exhibition catalog and an academic edited volume, we trace the complex’s many looks, functions, users, and stories over seven hundred years. Through our detailed study of one site, we offer a general exploration of Persian art and Iranian culture from the medieval period to the present.

    We invite you to explore the exhibition’s Six Thematic Galleries and read the Introduction by curator Keelan Overton.

    EYV poster, with QR code, March 2025Download

  • Zoroastrian Iconographies from Pre-Islamic Persia and Central Asia

    Compareti, Matteo. 2024. Studies on Zoroastrian Iconographies from Pre-Islamic Persia and Central Asia. Roma: WriteUp.

    Sogdiana was an Eastern Iranian land situated in the territories of modern Uzbekistan and Tajikistan. It never formed a significant political or military force although, between the 6th-9th centuries, Sogdians became the main actors in the caravan and maritime trade networks commonly called the “Silk Road”. Most of archaeological and artistic materials about Sogdians come from excavations in ex-Soviet Central Asia, especially the site of Penjikent (Tajikistan). Wall paintings from this important Sogdian site show a native polytheistic faith with Zoroastrian background, which is still puzzling experts of Iranian studies. During the centuries, local artists adopted external cultural elements that – once individuated – could help to shed light on unidentified deities of the Sogdian pantheon. Their comparison with Zoroastrian deities depicted in pre-Islamic Persian arts represents an invaluable instrument to improving our knowledge of this fascinating but still enigmatic field of studies.

  • Iranian Art

    Blair, Sheila, Jonathan M. Bloom & Sandra Williams (eds.). 2024. Iranian art from the Sasanians to the Islamic Republic. Essays in honour of Linda Komaroff (Edinburgh Studies in Islamic Art). Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.

    Introduces Iranian art from classical to contemporary media, showing how art can be a source for history and politics

    • Takes a broad view of the Persianate world
    • Opens a traditional field in new directions
    • Presents a combination of senior scholars and younger voices, and includes perspectives from Asia, Europe and the USA
    • Combines views from the academy, the museum and the laboratory, ranging from the practical to the theoretical

  • Gandharan Art and the Classical World

    Stewart, Peter. 2024. Gandharan Art and the Classical World: A Short Introduction. Oxford: Archaeopress.

    This book offers an introduction to Gandharan art and the mystery of its relationship with the Graeco-Roman world of the Mediterranean. It presents an accessible explanation of the ancient and modern contexts of Gandharan art, the state of scholarship on the subject, and guidance for further, in-depth study.

    In the early centuries AD, the small region of Gandhara (centred on what is now northern Pakistan) produced an extraordinary tradition of Buddhist art which eventually had an immense influence across Asia. Mainly produced to adorn monasteries and shrines, Gandharan sculptures celebrate the Buddha himself, the stories of his life and the many sacred characters of the Buddhist cosmos. Since this imagery was rediscovered in the nineteenth century, one of its most fascinating and puzzling aspects is the extent to which it draws on the conventions of Greek and Roman art, which originated thousands of kilometres to the west.

    Inspired by the Gandhara Connections project at Oxford University’s Classical Art Research Centre, this book offers an introduction to Gandharan art and the mystery of its relationship with the Graeco-Roman world of the Mediterranean. It presents an accessible explanation of the ancient and modern contexts of Gandharan art, the state of scholarship on the subject, and guidance for further, in-depth study.

  • A Historiography of Persian Art: Past, Present and Future

    A special issue of the Journal of Art Historiography: A Historiography of Persian Art: Past, Present and Future, No. 28, June 2023, guest edited by Yuka Kadoi and András Barati.

    Table of Contents

    • Yuka Kadoi: ‘A Twenty-Year Retrospect on ‘The Mirage of Islamic Art’: Polarising Islamic art, consolidating Persian art’
    • Nile Green: ‘The rekhta of architecture: the development of ‘Islamic’ art history in Urdu, c.1800-1950’
    • Ebba Koch: ‘Discovering Mughal painting in Vienna by Josef Strzygowski and his circle: the historiography of the Millionenzimmer’
    • Henry P. Colburn: ‘A brief historiography of Parthian art, from Winckelmann to Rostovtzeff’
    • Iván Szántó: ‘West-östlich diplomacy and connoisseurship in the late Habsburg Empire: Baron Albert Eperjesy and his dispersed collection of Persian art’ 
    • Kassiani Kagouridi: ‘Musealisation and ethno-cultural stereotypes in Persian art: the case of Baluch carpets ca. 1870s – 1930s’ 
    • Tomasz Grusiecki (Boise State University), ‘Rethinking the so-called Polish carpets’
    • Dorothy Armstrong: ‘Persophilia and technocracy: carpets in the World of Islam Festival, 1976’
    • Jaimee K. Comstock-Skipp: ‘The ‘Iran’ Curtain: the historiography of Abu’l-Khairid (Shaybanid) arts of the book and the ‘Bukhara School’ during the Cold War’
    • Robert Hillenbrand: ‘Eric Schroeder: maverick polymath’
    • Andrea Luigi Corsi: ‘A matter of timing: the modern history of a ‘Sasanian’ silver plate from Rashy’
    • Johannes L. Kurz: ‘Dashi 大食 reconsidered’ 
    • Jens Kröger: ‘Kurt Erdmann (1901-1964)’
    • Jens Kröger: ‘Carl Johan Lamm (1902-1981)’
    • Joachim Gierlichs: ‘Ernst Cohn-Wiener (1882-1941) and his contribution on Islamic Art and Architecture in Central Asia’ 

  • Gandhāran Art in its Buddhist Context

    Rienjang, Wannaporn & Peter Stewart (eds.). 2023. Gandhāran art in its Buddhist context. Oxford: Archaeopress Archaeology.

    This book considers Gandhāran art in relation to its religious contexts and meanings within ancient Buddhism. Addressing the responses of patrons and worshippers at the monasteries and shrines of Gandhāra, papers seek to understand more about why Gandhāran art was made and what its iconographical repertoire meant to ancient viewers.

  • The Rediscovery and Reception of Gandhāran Art

    Rienjang, Wannaporn & Peter Stewart (eds.). 2022. The rediscovery and reception of Gandhāran art. Oxford: Archaeopress Archaeology.

    From the archaeologists and smugglers of the Raj to the museums of post-partition Pakistan and India, from coin-forgers and contraband to modern Buddhism and contemporary art, this fourth volume of the Gandhāra Connections project presents the most recent research on the factors that mediate our encounter with Gandhāran art.

  • To Be or Not to Be (Divine)

    Waters, Matt. 2021. To be or not to be (divine): The Achaemenid king and essential ambiguity in image, text, and historical context. In: Karen Sonik (ed.), Art/ifacts and ArtWorks in the ancient world, 159–181. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.

    This chapter concerns itself with ideological expressions or, better, intimations of royal divinity during the Achaemenid Period (559–330 BCE). It is a foray into not only art historical matters but also subjects that have their own well-developed methodologies beyond their application in Near Eastern studies, particularly ideology and ambiguity. It takes as its case study a series of deliberately ambiguous portrayals of the Achaemenid king, primarily from the reign of Darius I, that blur the already vague line between king and god, and it briefly considers the impetus and implications for these.

  • Three Women from Elam

    Rafiei-Alavi, Babak, Faranak Bahrololoumi & Sabine Klein. 2022. Three women from Elam: A revision of the Haft Tappeh metal plaque. BASOR 387, 171-180.

    Top: new drawing of the metal plaque of Haft Tappeh, bottom: old drawing. (Drawings by B. Rafiei-Alavi, bottom drawing after Negahban 1991: Ill. 4)

    The metal plaque of Haft Tappeh was found more than 60 years ago, and except for a few scenes on terracotta plaques and cylinder seals from both Elam and Mesopotamia with similar but not identical settings, it still has no known parallels in metal and remains a unique example of Elamite art. The present article is a study of this object from the heartland of the Elamite kingdom in the Khuzestan Plain. It revisits the scenic plaque and attempts to correct some of the misunderstandings regarding the identification of its iconography and symbology based on new photos, X-ray images, and lab analysis. The article also tries to place the plaque in its proper spatial and temporal context, using comparative methods and chemical and isotope analysis.