Join the Society for Asian Art as we explore the art of India and the Islamic world. As in past seasons, the Fall 2011 lecture series will feature prominent scholars and curators from across the country and showcase many treasures of the Asian Art Museum. An array of topics will be discussed, including the life and visual representation of the Buddha; Hindu gods and goddesses and the depiction of heavenly bodies; sacred architecture; Hindu epics; the diversity of South Asian religious practice and the rise of Islam across Asia; Mughals, maharajas, and manuscript paintings; and contemporary Indian art. This lecture series coincides with the beginning of a three-year training program for new Asian Art Museum docents.

Stories of the prophets from the Old and New Testaments have had a long history of illustration in Islamic painting traditions. Drawing from accounts in the Qur’an and other sources in Islamic literature, scholars, poets, historians and storytellers developed new texts on the lives of the prophets. These texts were often accompanied by paintings. Dr. Robert Hillenbrand will explore the richness of some of these literary and artistic traditions.

In addition to giving artistic instruction on the art of writing, a teacher of Islamic calligraphy trained a student in how to prepare and use a multitude of materials and tools.

Along with the more traditional jeweled sword and scabbard, this impressive gun served as a ceremonial object, held by one of Sultan Mahmud I’s attendants during state ceremonies. While the flamboyant decoration of the gun lent itself to public spectacle, the experience of extracting its treasures from the gun’s stock is a more personal act. This video reveals the various components of this ornate gun. View this gun in the exhibition, Pearls on a String: Artists, Patrons, and Poets at the Great Islamic Courts (on view at the Asian Art Museum from Feb. 26 to May 8, 2016).