"The splendor of Islamic glass is revealed in this publication, the first major study of the subject in over seventy years. Glass objects rarely bear inscriptions that provide vital information, and being so readily portable, they have throughout history been carried far from their place of origin. In a feat of patient scholarship, Stefano Carboni draws on a hugh range of sources in many languages and from many disciplines to produce this comprehensive history of Islamic glassmaking. The book is a catalogue of the superb al-Sabah Collection in Kuwait and includes clear and informative introductions to each period, as well as detailed descriptions of some 500 individual objects and fragments, accompanied by hundreds of colour photographs and specially commissioned line drawings. It begins with the legacy of Roman and Sasanian Persian traditions in the early years of Islam and extends well over a thousand years to the last phase of glass production in Mughal India and Safavid and Qajar Iran in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The discussion covers a huge assortment of glass forms and decorative techniques, including the enamelled and gilded glass of thirteenth- and fourteenth-century Egypt and Syria, still unsurpassed in its magnificence, as well as many lesser-known categories of glass common to both the early and medieval periods in many locations, ranging from the undecorated to those with applied, cut, moulded or impressed decoration."--Back cover.

This catalogue accompanies an exhibition that brings together more than 150 glass objects representing twelve centuries of Islamic glassmaking. Included are the principal types of pre-industrial glass from Egypt, the Middle East, and India in a comprehensive array of shapes, colors, and techniques such as glassblowing, the use of molds, the manipulation of molten glass with tools, and the application of molten glass to complete or decorate an object. -- Metropolitan Museum of Art website.

Students and scholars of the Italian Renaissance easily fall under the spell of its achievements: its self-confident humanism, its groundbreaking scientific innovations, its ravishing artistic production. Yet many of the developments in Italian ceramics and glass were made possible by Italy's proximity to the Islamic world. The Arts of Fire underscores how central the Islamic influence was on this luxury art of the Italian Renaissance. Published to coincide with an exhibition at the Getty Museum on view from May 4 to August 5, 2004, The Arts of Fire demonstrates how many of the techniques of glass and ceramic production and ornamentation were first developed in the Islamic East between the eighth and twelfth centuries. These techniques - enamel and gilding on glass and tin-glaze and lustre on ceramics - produced brilliant and colourful decoration that was a source of awe and admiration, transforming these crafts, for the first time, into works of art and true luxury commodities. Essays by Catherine Hess, George Saliba, and Linda Komaroff demonstrate early modern Europe's debts to the Islamic world and help us better understand the interrelationships of cultures over time.

The splendor of Islamic glass is revealed in this remarkable publication, the first major study of the subject in over seventy years. Glass objects rarely bear inscriptions that provide vital information, and being so readily portable, they have throughout history been carried far from their place of origin. In a feat of patient scholarship, Stefano Carboni draws on a huge range of sources in many languages and from many disciplines to produce this comprehensive history of Islamic glassmaking.

From 828, when Venetian merchants carried home from Alexandria the stolen relics of St. Mark, to the fall of the Venetian Republic to Napoleon in 1797, the visual arts in Venice were dramatically influenced by Islamic art. Because of its strategic location on the Mediterranean, Venice had long imported objects from the Near East through channels of trade, and it flourished during this particular period as a commercial, political, and diplomatic hub. This monumental book examines Venice's rise as the "bazaar of Europe" and how and why the city absorbed artistic and cultural ideas that originated in the Islamic world. Venice and the Islamic World, 828–1797 features a wide range of fascinating images and objects, including paintings and drawings by familiar Venetian artists such as Bellini, Carpaccio, and Tiepolo; beautiful Persian and Ottoman miniatures; and inlaid metalwork, ceramics, lacquer ware, gilded and enameled glass, textiles, and carpets made in the Serene Republic and the Mamluk, Ottoman, and Safavid Empires. Together these exquisite objects illuminate the ways Islamic art inspired Venetian artists, while also highlighting Venice's own views toward its neighboring region. Fascinating essays by distinguished scholars and conservators offer new historical and technical insights into this unique artistic relationship between East and West.

In 1935-40 and again in 1947, the Iranian Expedition of the Metropolitan Museum excavated the city of Nishapur, a flourishing center in medieval times located in eastern Iran. This is the fourth volume in a series dedicated to publishing the finds. It presents a survey of glass of the early Islamic period throughout the Near East, discusses the significance of the Nishapur glass findings, and provides a catalogue of the finds with a focus on glass-decorating techniques. Map and site plans, a glossary, a concordance, and an extensive bibliography are included. Annotation copyright by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

This book is an interdisciplinary exploration of archaeological glass in which technological, historical, geological, chemical, and cultural aspects of the study of ancient glass are combined. The book examines why and how this unique material was invented some 4,500 years ago and considers the ritual, social, economic, and political contexts of its development. The book also provides an in-depth consideration of glass as a material, the raw materials used to make it, and its wide range of chemical compositions in both the East and the West from its invention to the seventeenth century AD. Julian Henderson focuses on three contrasting archaeological and scientific case studies: Late Bronze Age glass, late Hellenistic-early Roman glass, and Islamic glass in the Middle East. He considers in detail the provenances of ancient glass using scientific techniques and discusses a range of vessels and their uses in ancient societies.