The Gift Tradition in Islamic Art

The offering of gifts is a practice nearly as ancient and widespread as human culture itself. At courts throughout the Islamic world, the exchange of lavish gifts and endowments intimately linked art with diplomacy and royal ambitions, religion, and personal relationships.

This beautifully illustrated book explores the complex interplay between artistic production and gift-based patronage by discussing works of great aesthetic refinement that were either commissioned or repurposed as gifts. ...