Studies in Islamic Art

by Ralph Pinder-Wilson

Book cover: Studies in Islamic Art

Extent: 344 pages

Publisher: Pindar Press

Subjects: Art & Art History, Islamic & Middle Eastern Studies

Language: English

Hardback (Published)

(December 1985)

ISBN: 9780907132363

Price: $94.00

In stock

A collection of studies by Ralph Pinder-Wilson on Islamic art, focusing on decorative arts like pottery, bronze, jade and glass. It covers early Islamic glass, lustre ware, Norman Sicilian ivories, Persian bronzes, Mughal India, Afghan art. It includes papers on Islamic constellations and the evolution of Persian gardens’ influence on visual arts.


This volume brings together twenty-four of Ralph Pinder-Wilson’s studies on Islamic art, published over thirty years. These deal mainly with the decorative arts – lustre pottery, bronze, jade and glass – a field in which the author is an eminent authority. The objects covered range from early Islamic glass and lustre ware to the ivories produced in Norman Sicily and later Persian bronzes. The art of Mughal India and Afghanistan is also covered, in a number of important studies on manuscripts produced for Persian and Mughal rulers from the fifteenth to the seventeenth centuries. Two major papers reprinted here range outside the usual field of the art historian. The first, a study of the Malcolm celestial globe, explores the history and iconography of Islamic depictions of the constellations ; the second, a study of the Persian garden from the Achaemenid to the Qajar period, explores the textual evidence, and discusses the influence of this type of garden on the visual arts.

  • By (author) Ralph Pinder-Wilson