Portraits of Objects, Impressions of People: The Shahnama of Shah Tahmasp
Harvard Art Museums/Arthur M. Sackler Museum, The Norma Jean Calderwood Collection of Islamic Art, 2002.50.13.
Lecture Norma Jean Calderwood Lecture
Harvard Art Museums32 Quincy Street, Cambridge, MA
In this lecture, Sheila Canby, the Patti Cadby Birch Curator in Charge of the Department of Islamic Art at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, will examine the illustrations of the Shahnama produced for the Safavid ruler Shah Tahmasp I (r. 1524–76) between roughly 1524 and 1535. Realism and idealization coexist in the compositions, suggesting different norms for the portrayal of the inanimate and non-human animate world from those of human representation. While the lecture will touch on theories of portraiture in Islamic art, it will also connect the paintings with the natural and material environment of early 16th-century Safavid Iran.
Following the lecture, select galleries related to topics covered in the talk will be open for one hour.
Free admission
The lecture will take place in Menschel Hall, Lower Level. Please enter the museums via the entrance on Broadway.
Complimentary parking available in the Broadway Garage, 7 Felton Street, Cambridge.
The Norma Jean Calderwood Lecture Fund honors a longtime friend of the Harvard Art Museums who pursued graduate study in Islamic art at Harvard and who for many years taught Islamic and Asian art at Boston College and at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.