Contrary to what the title suggests, this is not a book about Islam, nor about Islam in Europe. It is a catalog for an art exhibition held at the Sam Fogg gallery in London from 3 November to 22 December 2023. The exhibition (and catalog) bring together sixty works of art--paintings, carpets, textiles, ceramics, glass, metalwork--from a broad area stretching from Central Asia to the Iberian Peninsula and ranging from the ninth to the seventeenth centuries. As Diana Luber explains in her brief introduction, the exhibition focuses on common themes and techniques in European and Islamic art in this period, and in particular about how Europeans adapted elements of Islamic art into their own visual and decorative arts. “Our catalog,” she says, “attempts to undermine the idea that the artworks here straddle two distant worlds; instead, this publication illustrates the inherent interconnectedness and interpenetration of the Islamic world and Europe” (7). The reader might be skeptical that such an idea would need undermining. Indeed, it would probably be hard to find many art historians over the last twenty to thirty years who would uphold the idea being “undermined” here. While specialists in art history and in intercultural relations will learn nothing new here, the exhibition and the catalog provide a number of judiciously chosen, beautifully illustrated, and well-documented examples to show the extent and nature of the interconnectedness of artistic practice throughout this broad region over nine centuries.
The large-format book presents each of the 60 objects in high-quality color photos. Each object is given a 1-2-page description, placing it clearly in its cultural and art-historical context and explaining the ways in which it participates in the cultural and artistic exchange in between the Islamic world and Europe. Numerous parallels are drawn to similar artworks (not present in the exhibition, but reproduced in the catalog illustrations).
Twenty items (a third of those in the exhibition) come from the Iberian Peninsula: aquamaniles and other luxury items in cast bronze; wooden beams, other architectural elements, and furniture carved with Cufic inscriptions; a wooden box with elaborate inlays of bone, metal and colored stone (item 24 in the catalog). There are beautiful Qur’ans, including a fourteenth-century manuscript from Granada (item 12 in the catalog), in Maghrebi script, text in red, diacritical marks in blue, with gold-leaf decorations. There are also simple undecorated manuscripts that illustrate the transmission of texts and knowledge. Item 14 is a thirteenth-century manuscript of Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī’s commentary on Avicenna’s Sources of Wisdom. An anonymous scholar made extensive marginal notes in Latin: it is unclear when and where they were written, but they provide a clear example of the importance of Arabic scientific and philosophical texts in Latin Europe. There is a fourteenth-century manuscript of Avicenna’s Canon of Medicine (item 15) and a fifteenth-century Hebrew commentary on the Canon (16). Item 17 provides a fascinating example of the transfer of knowledge: it is a thirteenth-century compilation of Malikifiqh (law). The manuscript was obtained by Pierre Jaubert (1779-1847), who served as a translator during Napoleon’s conquest of Egypt and subsequently was a prominent translator, diplomat, and scholar.
One of the strengths of the catalog is that it gives judicious examples showing the transfer of techniques and styles in diverse media. A beautiful gilded and painted flask (c. 1550, item no. 43 in the catalog) provides an exquisite example of Venetian glass, with the explanation of how Venice first imported foreign (particularly Egyptian) glass, then began to produce its own, and finally, by the fifteenth century, became the principal producer of luxury glass in Europe and the Mediterranean. Brass provides a similar example (items 38-41 in the catalog). A large brass basin produced in Egypt (c. 1470-1500, item 38) was made for a member of the Mamluk elite: the elaborate decoration includes highly stylized calligraphic inscriptions in honor of the official who ordered it. A second Egyptian basin from the same period (39) displays similar characteristics. At the same period, Mamluk artisans produced brass items specifically destined to the European export market: this seems to be the case with the hammered and engraved large salver (plate or tray) crafted around 1550 (40). Venetian craftsmen imitated and adapted Mamluk techniques and motives; it is at times hard to tell if a piece has been produced in Mamluk Egypt or Syria or is a Venetian imitation. Specialists speak of a “Veneto-Saracenic” style.
Ceramics travelled frequently across the Mediterranean. Already in the ninth and tenth centuries, Italian and Iberian ships transported grain, iron and other raw materials to ports in the Levant often brought back ceramics--in part, the ceramics provided needed ballast, and they of course allowed merchants to bring back wares to sell in Europe. Here too, European artisans imitated and adapted oriental techniques and styles, as we see in a blue and gold tin-glazed plate from Faenza (c. 1525-1535, item 42)
Textiles (including carpets) play a large role in the exhibition and catalog, representing about a third of the items. There is Ilkhanid cloth of gold from thirteenth-century central Asia; fourteenth-century velvet from Tabriz; carpets from Anatolia. These textiles could be used for various purposes, including in sacred spaces: Ottoman silk cloth is made into a chasuble (46). Here, too, we see Italian reuse of Turko-Iranian techniques, styles and motifs: for example, in a pair of velvet panels with Ottoman motifs (47). A possibly French carpet from c. 1600 uses Ottoman motifs (54), as does an eighteenth-century carpet produced in Poland (56). And artistic influence was a two-way street: a piece of sixteenth-century Ottoman brocade (45) takes inspiration from Italian patterns.
The authors pay particular attention to paintings in which these imported luxury carpets and other textiles are portrayed. Simone Martini decks the archangel Gabriel in Ilkhanid cloth of gold in hisAnnunciation (c. 1330, p. 32); he dresses St. Louis of Toulouse and his brother King Robert I of Naples in sumptuous Ilkhanid cloth (36). Venetian painter Giovanni Mansueti’s Supper at Emmaus (c. 1493-1495) depicts figures in Mamluk costume serving Jesus and his disciples (37). In Giovanni Bellini’sLamentation over the Dead Christ (c.1510-1516), Mary Magdalene wears a silk tunic bearing typical decoration from Nasrid Granada; in his Annunciation, Mary kneels on an Anatolian carpet. Many other paintings reproduced in the catalog show contemporary European scenes in which carpets and textiles figure as deluxe accessories.
In sum, this beautifully produced, sumptuously illustrated catalog provides a fascinating glimpse at the development and movement of artistic techniques and styles across a huge area between Persia and Spain over nine centuries.