Ars Orientalis

Now Available: Volume 42

The current issue of Ars Orientalis, volume 42, features articles based on papers presented at the Second Biennial Symposium of the Historians of Islamic Art Association. Held in October 2010, Objects, Collections, and Cultures brought curators, art historians, and other specialists from across the globe to the Freer and Sackler Galleries for three days of presentations. With nearly twenty essays, this volume also includes a corresponding website with additional content: a new scientific examination and analysis of the Freer Battle Plate, and three essays on the cinema of the Middle East. This expanded volume also marks the first printing of Ars Orientalis with color illustrations.

A few highlights of the issue include May Farhat’s essay on the Lebanese collector Henri Pharaon’s collection and its significance, and Barbara Karl’s essay on the Habsburgs’ collecting of Islamic art in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Several iconic pieces from the Freer collection, including the Freer Canteen and the mina’i battle plate, are the focus of detailed studies. Other articles examine manuscripts ranging in date from the tenth through eighteenth century, originating from Spain to India. Together this assemblage of new research provides a snapshot of how objects from the Islamic world are being studied and understood at this moment in the history of the field.

The new Ars Orientalis, recent issues, and back issues are available to order.

Ars Orientalis is a peer-reviewed annual volume of scholarly articles and occasional reviews of books on the art and archaeology of Asia, the ancient Near East, and the Islamic world. It is published jointly by the Freer and Sackler Galleries and the University of Michigan Department of History of Art. Fostering a broad range of topics and approaches, and including both themed issues and those exploring several subjects, the journal is intended for scholars in diverse fields. Ars Orientalis provides a forum for new scholarship, with a particular interest in work that redefines and crosses boundaries, both spatial and temporal.