Dr Anna Contadini · 11 December 2025, 5–6:30 pm UK time
Abstract
The Ilkhanid period was marked by an extraordinary cultural vitality in which the arts flourished in a variety of ways that escape capture within a homogenous stylistic and formal framework. Among them, the arts of the book are particularly impressive both in terms of calligraphy, illumination and illustrations. This lecture will reflect on themes of Ilkhanid painting, focusing on a dispersed copy of the Nuzhat-nama-yi ʿAlaʾi (ʿAlaʾi’s Book of Pleasure) of Shamardan ibn Abi al-Khayr Razi datable to the turn of the 14th century, outstanding for its extraordinary paintings and calligraphic scripts.
About the speaker
Anna Contadini, Professor of the History of Islamic Art at SOAS University of London, specialises in illustrated book culture of the Islamic world, object studies, translocation and transculturation, and artistic and cultural exchanges between Europe and the Islamic world. She studied Arabic and Islamic Art at Venice University, also earning a piano Diploma from the Conservatorio Benedetto Marcello, before completing her PhD in Islamic Art at SOAS. Her career has included roles as Research Fellow in Islamic Studies at the V&A, Lecturer in Islamic Art at Trinity College, and Curator of the Islamic Collections at the Chester Beatty Library, Dublin, prior to returning to SOAS.
Professor Contadini serves on numerous international peer-review, editorial, scientific, and advisory boards, and has received several honours, notably the 2019 Paris Collège de France medal for “the intellectual merits and world contribution to the history of art”. She has held visiting professorships at Leiden, Heidelberg, and Bologna Universities, the EHESS in Paris, and Harvard University at I Tatti. Her recent publications are the results of long-standing projects and include major studies on Fatimid material culture, Islamic art in Bologna, the Kalila wa-Dimna manuscript tradition, and medieval Islamicate metalwork. She is also the founder of Brill’s monograph series Islamic Art in Resonance.
