Siculo-Arabic Ivories and Islamic Painting 1100-1300

Description

The painted ivories of Norman Sicily count among the most original creations known from medieval Palermo. These small, lavishly decorated objects reveal the fascination of the Norman kings for Islamic art and culture. This is the first book to be devoted exclusively to the Sicilian ivories since 1939. The text, drawn from proceedings of an international conference held in Berlin in 2007, contains essays by Marianne Barrucand, Jonathan Bloom, Anthony Cutler, Thomas Dittelbach, Erica Cruikshank Dodd, Antony Eastmond, Barry Flood, Maria Vittoria Fontana, Eva Hoffman, Lucy-Anne Hunt, Mat Immerzeel, Adeline Jeudy, Martina Muller-Wiener, David Knipp, Mourad Rammah, Mariam Rosser-Owen, Avinoam Shalem, and Bas Snelders.

David Knipp is an art historian and research fellow. He is a recipient of the Hanno and Ilse Hahn Prize for Outstanding Contributions to Italian Art History.

"A beautifully edited and fully illustrated publication. . . . This kind of object of material culture can easily fall between the gaps in academic scholarship because it fails to slot neatly into traditional art-historical classifications. . . . David Knipp rightly points out in his introduction that the term 'Siculo-Arabic ivories' is a misleading one. It suggests that this is a straightforward group of painted and gilded ivory containers made in Sicily by Muslim craftsmen. The papers in the volume reveal a much more complicated story."-- "Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies" (10/17/2013 12:00:00 AM)