The first and only book on one of the finest private collections of contemporary Iranian art
This sumptuous volume features almost 250 contemporary artworks and a selection of medieval and early modern Islamic art - the heralded collection of Mohammed Afkhami, a prominent player at the cultural and regional front line of Middle Eastern art. Honar (meaning 'art' in Farsi, the language of Iran), includes works ranging from the disturbingly subversive to exquisitely inclusive, exhibiting the pain of exile, the querying of ideology, and the artistic insistence on personal independence.

Honar: The Afkhami Collection of Modern and Contemporary Iranian Art

Arts & Photography

Babaie, Sussan

Porter, Venetia

Morris, Natasha

History & Criticism

Phaidon Press

Isfahan and its Palaces: Statecraft, Shi`ism and the Architecture of Conviviality in Early Modern Iran (Edinburgh Studies in Islamic Art)

This beautifully illustrated history of Safavid Isfahan (1501-1722) explores the architectural and urban forms and networks of socio-cultural action that reflected a distinctly early-modern and Perso-Shi'i practice of kingship. An immense building campaign, initiated in 1590-91 at the millennial threshold of the Islamic calendar (1000 A.H.), transformed Isfahan from a provincial, medieval, and largely Sunni city into an urban-centered representation of the first Imami Shi'i empire in the history of Islam. The historical process of Shi'ification of Safavid Iran and the deployment of the arts in situating the shifts in the politico-religious agenda of the imperial household informs Sussan Babaie's study of palatial architecture and urban environments of Isfahan and the earlier capitals of Tabriz and Qazvin. Babaie argues that since the Safavid claim presumed the inheritance both of the charisma of the Shi'i Imams and of the aura of royal splendor integral to ancient Persian notions of kingship, a ceremonial regime was gradually devised in which access and proximity to the shah assumed the contours of an institutionalized form of feasting. Talar-palaces, a new typology in Islamic palatial designs, and the urban-spatial articulation of access and proximity are the architectural anchors of this argument. Cast in the comparative light of urban spaces and palace complexes elsewhere and earlier-in the Timurid, Ottoman, and Mughal realms as well as in the early modern European capitals-Safavid Isfahan emerges as the epitome of a new architectural-urban paradigm in the early modern age.

Isfahan and its Palaces: Statecraft, Shi'ism and the Architecture of Conviviality in Early Modern Iran (Edinburgh Studies in Islamic Art)

Literature & Fiction

Edinburgh University Press

Book by Swietochowski, Marie Lukens, Babaie, Sussan

Persian Drawings in the Metropolitan Museum of Art

Swietochowski, Marie Lukens

Collections, Catalogs & Exhibitions

Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Safavid dynasty represented the pinnacle of Iran's power and influence in its early modern history. The evidence of this - the creation of a nation state, military expansion and success, economic dynamism and the exquisite art and architecture of the period is well-known. What is less understood is the extent to which the Safavid success depended on an elite originating from outside Iran: the slaves of Caucasian descent and the Armenian merchants of Isfahan. This book describes how these elites, following their conversion to Islam, helped to transform Isfahan's urban, artistic and social landscape.

Slaves of the Shah: New Elites of Safavid Iran (Library of Middle East History)

History

Babayan, Kathryn

Baghdiantz-MacCabe, Ina

Farhad, Mussumeh

Middle East

I.B.Tauris

Since the Shah went into exile and the Islamic Republic was established in 1979 in the wake of the Iranian Revolution, the very idea of monarchy in Iran has been contentious. Yet, as Persian Kingship and Architecture argues, the institution of kingship has historically played a pivotal role in articulating the abstract notion of 'Iran' since antiquity. These ideas surrounding kingship and nation have, in turn, served as a unifying cultural force despite shifting political and religious allegiances. Through analyses of palaces, mausolea, art, architectural decoration and urban design the authors show how architecture was appropriated by different rulers as an integral part of their strategies of legitimising power. They refer to a variety of examples, from the monuments of Persepolis under the Achamenids, the Sassanian palaces at Kish, the Safavid public squares of Isfahan, the Qajar palaces at Shiraz and to the modernisation and urban agendas of the Pahlavis. Drawing on archaeology, ancient, medieval, early and modern architectural history, both Islamic and secular, this book is indispensable for all those interested in Iranian studies and visual culture.

Persian Kingship and Architecture: Strategies of Power in Iran from the Achaemenids to the Pahlavis (International Library of Iranian Studies)

Grigor, Talinn

The Mercantile Effect: Art and Exchange in the Islamicate World During the 17th and 18th Centuries (Gingko Library Art Series)

Um, Nancy

Gibson, Melanie

Ballian, Anna

Gigante, Federica

Gusella, Francesco

Kale, Gül

Kançal-Ferrari, Nicole

Kynan-Wilson, William

Lam, Suet May

Landau, Amy

Merantzas, Christos

Gingko

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Books by Babaie, Sussan