Abstract: How can global art history illuminate Mughal art’s connections with Greater Iran and Central Asia, particularly Transoxiana? The lecture opens by considering the place of Islamic art within global art history. A brief discussion of architecture introduces these connections before turning to the ERC project GLOBAL DECO PAPER, which investigates decorated paper from China to West Asia. Decorated paper is a widespread yet comparatively understudied feature of early modern manuscripts across this extensive geographical area. Used both as a writing surface and as a frame surrounding the central text panel, it formed an integral part of manuscript production and refurbishment. Within this broader practice, a distinctive group of coloured papers bears contrasting stencilled designs. These feature recurring floral, geometric, zoomorphic, and figural motifs in positive and negative forms, arranged in both horizontal and vertical orientations. The recurrence of identical designs across different manuscripts suggests production in one or more specialised workshops.
Selected South Asian examples are situated within connections between Transoxiana and the Mughal world. Naqshbandī networks and Mughal nostalgia for the Timurid past provide a framework for examining the circulation and appreciation of manuscripts, materials, and artistic practices. Dating and locating stencilled decoration in manuscripts remain challenging because decorated frames were not necessarily produced at the same time as the calligraphed texts, even when the latter are dated and localised. Ownership inscriptions, seals, bindings, and other codicological evidence can help establish the chronology of decoration, provided their relationship to the decorated paper can be determined. Several manuscripts can be traced to both Transoxiana and the Mughal Empire, suggesting movement predominantly towards South Asia, although transfers in the opposite direction are also documented. This contribution examines whether stencilled decoration formed part of manuscripts’ original conception or resulted from later interventions, asking how these papers illuminate artistic exchange, material mobility, and practices of valuation between Transoxiana and the Mughal Empire.
About the speakers:
Ilse Sturkenboom studied Art History as well as Art History and Archaeology at the University of Groningen. After that, she did an MA in Iranian Studies at the University of Bamberg, where she also competed a doctorate. Following stints at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the University of Amsterdam, and the University of Vienna, she took up a role as Lecturer in Iranian Islamic Art History at the University of St Andrews in Scotland in 2016. Ilse Sturkenboom joined the staff of LMU Munich in 2021 as Professor of Islamic Art History. She is particularly interested in Islamicate arts of the book and the exchange between Islamicate art and other cultures.
Theresa Zischkin studied English and American Studies, Art History, and Classical Archaeology at the University of Vienna. Afterwards, she completed an MLitt in Art History at the University of St Andrews in Scotland and an MA in Arts and Culture Management at the Rome Business School. She worked as a research assistant at LMU Munich in 2021-2023, where she taught two undergraduate seminars in Islamic Art History as well as courses on research and academic writing. Theresa Zischkin is currently a PhD student at LMU Munich and is researching Mughal decorated paper for GLOBAL DECO PAPER.