Linda Komaroff
Gifts of the Sultan: The Arts of Giving at the Islamic Courts.
Los Angeles County Museum of Art/Yale University Press, 2011. First edition. 9780300171105 335 pages.
Large-format volume, measuring approximately 10.25" x 12.5", is bound in dark blue cloth, with blind-stamped lettering to spine and blind-stamped title on front cover. Book and dust jacket are new. Jacket is preserved in mylar cover.
"The offering of Gifts - state, religious and personal - is a practice nearly as ancient and widespread as human culture itself. At courts throughout the Islamic world, the exchange of lavish gifts intimately linked art with diplomacy, religion and personal relationship. This beautifully illustrated book explorer the complex interplay between artistic production and gift-based patronage by discussing works of great aesthetic refinement that were either commissioned or repurposed as gifts. By following the unique histories of certain artworks, Komaroff reveals how t he exchange of luxury objects was central to the circulation, emulation and assimilation of artistic forms both within and beyond the Islamic world. She adds a new dimension to the understanding of Islamic art and culture from the eighth to the fifteenth century."