“The Wonders of Creation and the Singularities of Painting: An illustrated Arabic manuscript from the early 14th century,” Dr Stefano Carboni (Director, Art Gallery of Western Australia and Adjunct Professor of Islamic Art, The University of Western Australia)
Date: 5 October 2015
Time: 6:00pm
Venue: Seminar Room 1, University Club UWA (Parking: P3 off Hackett Entrance 1)
Cost: Free, but RSVP essential.
The subject of this lecture is the so-called London Qazvīnī, an early 14th-century illustrated Arabic copy of an encyclopaedia of natural history entitled (in translation) The Wonders of Creation and the Oddities of Existing Things, which has an ambitious illustrative cycle and was likely created in Mosul in Northern Iraq. The author of the text, Zakariyā ibn Muḥammad ibn Maḥmūd al-Qazvīnī (1202-83), was a Persian of Arab origin from the city of Qazvin, who spent most of his life first in Mosul and then in Baghdad as a man of law and erudite scholar and held the position of professor in a prominent madrasa south of Baghdad. Acquired by the British Library in 1983 and unrecorded until then, the London Qazvīnī is an important document for the study of early illustrated Arabic copies of this text, representing the second earliest known surviving manuscript, as well as for the study of book illustration under the patronage of the Ilkhanids, or Mongols of Iran. In a single and unique manuscript are gathered earlier Mesopotamian painting traditions, Northern Iraqi and Southern Anatolian inspirations, the latest changes brought about after the advent of the Mongols, and a number of illustrations of extraordinary subjects which escape a proper classification. The manuscript is the subject of a book authored by Stefano Carboni and just released by Edinburgh University Press, which offers a presentation, stylistic analysis and discussion of its 368 miniature paintings that illustrate this codex, their scientific identification and a partial critical translation of the related Arabic text. The eclectic nature of the miniature paintings of the London manuscript adds important and unrecorded information to the study of early fourteenth-century Persian painting and this monographic work helps towards a better understanding of a still relatively obscure period in the history of Persian painting.
In October 2008, Stefano Carboni was appointed the 11th Director of the Art Gallery of Western Australia. Since beginning his directorship, he has been instrumental in the implementation and delivery of several major projects including the successful completion of the $25m Tomorrowfund which is used for acquisitions of contemporary art, the reinstallation of the State Art Collection long-term displays, a very active program of acquisitions, the introduction of the Great Collections of the World Series of exhibitions including an Australian-exclusive three exhibition partnership with The Museum of Modern Art, New York, the Gallery façade recladding project, and a new vision document for the Gallery.
Prior to coming to Western Australia, Stefano was Curator and Administrator in the Department of Islamic Art at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, and Visiting Professor at the Bard Graduate Center in New York. He joined the curatorial staff at the Metropolitan Museum in 1992 after completing graduate studies in Arabic and in Islamic Art at the University of Venice and his Ph.D. in Islamic Art at the University of London. At the Metropolitan Museum he was responsible for a large number of exhibitions, including the acclaimed Venice and the Islamic World, 828-1797 (2006-2007).
His publications include authoring and editing several exhibition catalogues, among which are Glass of the Sultans (2001); the prestigious Barr Award winner The Legacy of Genghis Khan; Courtly Arts and Culture in Western Asia, 1256-1353 (2002); and Venice and the Islamic World. Another major publication is the catalogue of the Islamic glass collection in the National Museum of Kuwait (Glass from Islamic Lands. The Al-Sabah Collection, Kuwait National Museum, 2001).
He is currently also Adjunct Professor of Islamic Art at the University of Western Australia and continues to lecture widely in Islamic art and curatorial studies.
The lecture will be followed by a celebration of the release of Dr Carboni’s new book: The Wonders of Creation and the Singularities of Painting. A Study of the Ilkhanid London Qazvīnī (Edinburgh University Press, 2015).
