Rae Alexander Lecture at NGV – Off the Page: Persian arts and the medieval and pre-modern Islamic world by Susan Scollay

The La Trobe University Alumni Art History Chapter presents, with the National Gallery of Victoria, the fourteenth annual Rae Alexander Lecture.

Classic Persian stories copied into illuminated manuscripts illustrated by exquisite miniature paintings represent one of the highest achievements in the history of the art of the book. These manuscripts conveyed images far beyond the boundaries of their country of origin and inspired a design vocabulary especially in ceramics and textiles. Rare examples of medieval and later books of the Persianate world from the collection of the Bodleian Libraries from the University of Oxford will be examined alongside parallels in other art objects including the ‘Trinitarias’ carpet’, recently cleaned and re-attributed and presently on exhibition as part of the National Gallery of Victoria’s 150th Anniversary celebrations.

Susan Scollay is an independent scholar and curator specialising in the arts and culture of the Islamic world. She is a contributing editor to the London-based journal, HALI: carpet, textile and Islamic art.  Currently she is guest co-curator of the major international loan exhibition of books and manuscripts from the Bodleian Libraries of the University of Oxford, Love and Devotion: from Persia and Beyond, at the State Library of Victoria, March – June 2012, a project that developed from her ongoing doctoral research at La Trobe University, Melbourne.

The lecture is named in honour and in memory of the founder of the La Trobe Art History Chapter, Rae Alexander (1919 – 2009). Rae convened the Art History Chapter in 1996. Her legacy has been its continued success which is reflected today in the Rae Alexander Lecture, our key event for the year.

All Welcome