’Rediscovering objects from Islamic Lands in Enlightenment Europe’. Review of: Rediscovering Objects from Islamic Lands in Enlightenment Europe, ed. by Isabelle Dolezalek and Mattia Guidetti, Studies in Art Historiography, New York and London: Routledge 2022, 188pp, 53 B/W Illustrations, £120, ISBN 9780367609474

Abstract

This article is a review of the volume Rediscovering Objects from Islamic Lands in Enlightenment Europe, edited by Isabelle Dolezalek and Mattia Guidetti. The volume claims to shed new light on an underestimated chapter in the historiography of the arts of Islam, particularly in their relation to Europe. The volume argues that advanced professionalization and scholarly network-building during the eighteenth century have led to important developments which were ground-breaking for the discipline of Islamic art history in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The review follows the six object-led chapters of the book and concludes by placing its claim within a larger historiography of the arts of Islam.