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The Making of the Jameel Gallery of Islamic Art

Edited by Tim Srtanley & Rosemary Crill

Published by V&A Publications

Not currently available from CORNUCOPIA

Buy it from Amazon at Amazon price + postage

Published 16 October 2006
to celebrate the new
Jameel Gallery of Islamic Art
at the Victoria & Albert Museum

From the publisher:

This book is a beautifully illustrated record of the creation of the new Jameel Gallery of Islamic Art (opened July 2006), which has been built to house more than 400 rare and precious pieces, including the famous Ardabil carpet, as well as fine examples of craftsmanship in ceramics, rock crystal and wood carving.

Providing a history of the acquisition and early years of the V&A's Islamic collections the book sets the scene, and gives an account of the curatorial processes involved in the selection of themes and objects, both for the redisplay and for the exhibition Palace and Mosque, which travelled to the USA and Japan while the new gallery was being built.

A discussion of the design concept for the Gallery, illustrated by computer-generated images of the new space, highlights the challenges of creating a more modern environment for Islamic art, and of presentation and interpretation to a wider public through interactive devices and other educational tools. V&A conservators also show, through a series of case studies, how objects of different types were prepared for display, while the lead-up to the actual installation of the objects is described in detail.

The Making of the Jameel Gallery of Islamic Art is also a unique record of the start of an important new phase in the history of the V&A's Islamic collections. Illustrated with stunning photographs of the newly opened gallery, the book will appeal to all with a fascination for Islamic art. The text by members of the team involved in the project, accompanied by technical details and plans of the Gallery, will interest museum professionals, exhibition designers, architects and conservators from all parts of the world.

About the Editors

Rosemary Crill is Senior Curator for South Asia at the V&A. After studying Turkish at London University, she joined the V&A in 1978 and has been a curator in the Indian Department (now part of the Asian Department) since 1980. She has published widely on Indian textiles and paintings, and her books include Marwar Painting (2000) and Indian Embroidery (1999). She is currently also curator of the Middle Eastern textile collection.

Tim Stanley is Senior Curator for the Middle East at the V&A. He first visited the region 30 years ago, while still at school, and subsequently trained as a historian of the Ottoman Empire at the universities of Manchester, Istanbul, Oxford and Sofia. Work on illuminated Ottoman documents introduced him to the field of Islamic art, and he has worked as an editor, curator and writer on many aspects of the subject. As deputy curator of the Khalili Collection in London from 1995, he was co-author of Lacquer of the Islamic Lands (1996-7) and The Decorated Word (1999). Since joining the V&A in 2002 he has published Palace and Mosque: Islamic Art from the Middle East (2004).