Department of History of Art and Archaeology
Professor of the History of Islamic Art
Centre for Iranian Studies
Member
Centre for Migration and Diaspora Studies
Member
Department
Department of History of Art and Archaeology
& School of Arts
Tuesdays, 3:00pm–4:00pm (in person); Wednesdays, 1:00pm–2:00pm (in person)
Biography
Professor Anna Contadini graduated in Arabic and Islamic Art at the Oriental Institute of Venice University with a thesis on miniature painting of the Mamluk period. She also has a great interest in music and has received a Diploma in piano as a soloist from the Conservatorio ‘Benedetto Marcello’ in Venice. Subsequently she completed her doctorate in Islamic Art at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) of London University with a thesis on early Arab and Persian miniature painting. She was then appointed Baring Foundation Research Fellow in Islamic Studies at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, where she was based in the Research Department. She conducted research on a range of objects drawn from the splendid Islamic collection of the Museum, but concentrated on the Fatimid material, on which she then wrote a book, published in 1998. From 1994-7 she was in Ireland, as Lecturer in Islamic Art at Trinity College Dublin, and Curator of the Islamic Collections of the Chester Beatty Library. Anna Contadini is now Professor in the History of Islamic Art.
Professor Contadini is the SOAS representative for the Illuminating Objects programme of The Courtauld Gallery which aims to shine new light on unexpected objects from the decorative arts and sculpture collections, through partnerships with SOAS, King’s College, London, the University of Kent in Canterbury and University College, London.
Research interests
One of Professor Contadini’s main areas of research is on Arabic and Persian illustrated manuscripts. She was editor of the book Arab Painting (2007, revised edition 2010) and is the author of A World of Beasts: A Thirteenth-Century Illustrated Arabic Book on Animals (the Kitāb Na‘t al-Ḥayawān) in the Ibn Bakhtīshū‘ Tradition (2012), both published by Brill. She was granted a “Visiting Researcher” position at the University of Heidelberg, 2009-2011, for interdisciplinary research on “Images of Alterity” in Medieval Western and Arabic and Persian illustrated manuscripts. She has also been elected to Associate Member of ICMA (International Centre of Medieval Art).
Professor Contadini is also continuing work on the interconnections between Europe, especially Italy, and the Middle East. The updated proceedings of the international conference on “The Renaissance and the Ottoman World” that she organized with the Warburg Institute in 2005 will soon be published by Ashgate as a co-edited volume of papers with Claire Norton. Another important aspect of her work on the connections between East and West is as the principal researcher and director of an interdisciplinary project on the Pisa Griffin, Mari-Cha Lion, Lucca Falcon and related metalwork and material culture, in collaboration with Pisa Opera del Duomo, Pisa University, Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche (CNR), Oxford University, and Istituto Superiore per la Conservazione ed il Restauro (ISCR) in Rome. One of the outcomes of this project is a seminar held in SOAS on 14 February 2013 that brings together art historians, historians and scientists to share their findings on these objects.
In 2012 Professor Contadini curated the exhibition Gifts of Recognition: Modern and Contemporary Art from the SOAS Collections, 11 July - 22 September 2012, which highlighted a number of art works that belonged to the School. This stems from an earlier 2007 project on the SOAS historical and art historical collections which resulted in a publication and exhibition at the Brunei Gallery titled Objects of Instruction, Treasures of the School of Oriental and African Studies, 11 October – 15 December 2007. Generously funded by the Foyle Foundation and the AHRC, the exhibition culminated in a permanent, rotating display of SOAS artistic and archival Treasures in the Foyle Special Collections Gallery. This is an important project aimed at publicizing the School’s remarkably rich but little known artistic and archival collections. It made the artistic assets of SOAS accessible for the first time to a wider audience, including students, scholars, and members of the general public.
Changes beyond the surface: Tracking the relationship between paper-making and human change in the Indus river basin region from 1000-1947 through a study of historical paper specimens
Due pannelli di cuoio dorato nel Museo Civico Medievale di Bologna
Contadini, Anna, 1988, Annali di Cà Foscari, Rivista della Facoltà di Lingue e Letterature Straniere dell'Università di Venezia, Serie Orientale (XXVII), 3, pp 127-142
Contadini, Anna, 1986, Annali di Cà Foscari, Rivista della Facoltà di Lingue e Letterature Straniere dell'Università di Venezia, Serie Orientale (XXV), 3, pp 109-121
The Middle Eastern Intellectual and Artistic Context at the Time of Ariosto
Contadini, Anna (2022). In: Casari, Mario, (eds.), Preti, Monica, (eds.) and Wyatt, Michael, (eds.), Ariosto and the Arabs: Contexts of the Orlando Furioso.. I Tatti - Harvard Research Centre for Renaissance Studies: Florence, Officina Libraria, pp 265-311
Intertextual Animals: Illustrated Kalila wa-Dimna Manuscripts in Context
Contadini, Anna (2022). In: Brac de la Perrière, Eloïse, (eds.), El Khiari, Aïda, (eds.) and Vernay-Nouri, Annie, (eds.), Le périples de Kalila et Dimna. Quand les fables voyagent dans la littérature et les arts du monde islamique. Leiden: Brill, pp 95-129
Changing Perceptions of Middle Eastern Objects and Cultures in Eighteenth-Century Europe
Contadini, Anna (2022). In: Dolezalek, Isabelle, (eds.) and Guidetti, Mattia, (eds.), Rediscovering Objects from Islamic Lands in Enlightenment Europe, Studies in Art Historiography. London: Routledge, pp 23-54
Camber, Richard and Contadini, Anna (2019). In: Contadini, Anna, (ed.), The Pisa Griffin and the Mari-Cha Lion. Metalwork, Art, and Technology in the Medieval Islamicate Mediterranean. Pisa: Pacini Editore, pp 63-75
The Pisa Griffin and the Mari-Cha Lion: History, Art and Technology
Contadini, Anna (2019). In: Contadini, Anna, (ed.), The Pisa Griffin and the Mari-Cha Lion. Metalwork, Art, and Technology in the Medieval Islamicate Mediterranean. Pisa: Pacini Editore, pp 197-256
Contadini, Anna (2019). In: Contadini, Anna, (ed.), The Pisa Griffin and the Mari-Cha Lion. Metalwork, Art, and Technology in the Medieval Islamicate Mediterranean. Pisa: Pacini Editore, pp 419-448
Camber, Richard and Contadini, Anna (2018). In: Contadini, Anna, (ed.), The Pisa Griffin and the Mari-Cha Lion. Metalwork, Art, and Technology in the Medieval Islamicate Mediterranean. Pisa: Pacini Editore, pp 19-34
Contadini, Anna (2017). In: Necipoğlu, Gülru, (eds.) and Flood, Finbarr Barry, (eds.), A Companion to Islamic Art and Architecture, Vol. 1. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, pp 431-452
Text and Image on Middle Eastern Objects: The Palmer Cup in Context
Contadini, Anna (2017). In: Shirley, Pippa, (eds.) and Thornton, Dora, (eds.), A Rothschild Renaissance: A New Look at the Waddesdon Bequest in the British Museum. London: British Museum Research Publications 212, pp 124-145
Threads of Ornament in the Style World of the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries
Contadini, Anna (2016). In: Necipoğlu, Gülru, (eds.) and Payne, Alina, (eds.), Histories of Ornament: From Global to Local. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, pp 290-308 and notes on pp. 397
Volando sopra il Mediterraneo: il Grifone di Pisa e aspetti della metallistica islamica medievale
Contadini, Anna (2016). In: Eslami, Alireza Naser, (ed.), Genova, una capitale del Mediterraneo tra Bisanzio e il mondo islamico. Storia, arte e architettura. Torino: Bruno Mondadori, pp 75-88
Contadini, Anna (2015). In: Bloom, Jonathan, (eds.) and Blair, Sheila, (eds.), God is the Light of the Heavens and the Earth. Light in Islamic Art and Culture. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, pp. 121-155
Contadini, Anna (2014). In: Ward, Rachel, (ed.), Court and Craft: A Masterpiece from Northern Iraq. London: The Courtauld Gallery with Paul Holberton Publishing, pp 46-51
L'Ornamento nel Mondo Ottomano e nell'Italia del Rinascimento: Trasmissione e Congiunzione
Contadini, Anna (2014). In: Naser Eslami, Alireza, (ed.), Incontri di Civiltà nel Mediterraneo. L'Impero Ottomano e l'Italia del Rinascimento. Storia, Arte e Architettura. Firenze: Olschki Editore, pp 57-74
Translocation and Transformation: Some Middle Eastern Objects in Europe
Contadini, Anna (2010). In: Saurma-Jeltsch, Lieselotte E, (eds.) and Eisenbeiss, Anja, (eds.), The Power of Things and the Flow of Cultural Transformation. Art and Culture between Europe and Asia. Berlin-Munich: Deutscher Kunstverlag, pp 42-65
Ayyubid Illustrated Manuscripts and their North Jaziran and `Abbasid Neighbours
Contadini, Anna (2009). In: Hillenbrand, Robert, (eds.) and Auld, S., (eds.), Ayyubid Jerusalem. The Holy City in Context 1187-1250.. London: Altajir Trust, pp 179-194, and col. ills. 17
The Zoological-Medicinal Material in the Arcadian Library Manuscript
Contadini, Anna (2008). In: Burnett, Charles, (ed.), Ibn Baklarish's Book of Simples: Medical Remedies between Three Faiths in Twelfth-Century Spain. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp 133-159
Le stoffe islamiche nel Rinascimento italiano tra il XV e il XVI secolo
Contadini, Anna (2006). In: Degl’Innocenti, D, (ed.), Intrecci Mediterranei. Il tessuto come dizionario di rapporti economici, culturali e sociali. Prato: Museo del Tessuto, pp 28-35
Musical Beasts: the Swan-Phoenix in the Ibn Bakhtishu‘ Bestiaries
Contadini, Anna (2005). In: O’Kane, B., (ed.), The Iconography of Islamic Art – Studies in Honour of Robert Hillenbrand. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, pp 93-101
Beasts that Roared: The Pisa Griffin and the New York Lion
Contadini, Anna, Camber, Richard and Northover, P. (2002). In: Ball, Warwick, (eds.) and Harrow, L., (eds.), Cairo to Kabul. Afghan and Islamic Studies Presented to Ralph Pinder-Wilson.. London: Melisende, pp 65-83
Artistic Contacts: Present Scholarship and Future Tasks
Contadini, Anna (1999). In: Contadini, Anna, (eds.) and Burnett, Charles, (eds.), Islam and the Italian Renaissance. Warburg Institute Colloquia. London: The Warburg Institute, pp 1-65
The Cutting Edge: Problems of History, Identification and Technique of Fatimid Rock Crystals
Contadini, Anna (1999). In: Barrucand, M., (ed.), L’Egypte fatimide. Son art et son histoire: actes du colloque organisé à Paris les 28, 29 et 30 mai 1998. Paris: Presses Universitaires de Paris-Sorbonne, pp 319-329
Contadini, Anna (1998). In: Barrucand, M., (ed.), Trésors fatimides du Caire. Paris: Institute du Monde Arabe, pp 74-84, and entries 23, 26, 54, 55, 82, 85, 87, 89, 100, 155, 156, 161, 203, 205, 208.
Bone, Ivory, and Shell: Artifacts of the Byzantine and Islamic Periods
Contadini, Anna (1997). In: Meyers, Eric M., (ed.), The Oxford Encyclopedia of Archaeology in the Near East. New York; Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp 348-350
The Horse in Two Manuscripts of Ibn Bakhtishu`'s Kitab Manafi` al-Hayawan
Contadini, Anna (1996). In: Alexander, D., (ed.), Furusiyya. Vol. 1 - The horse in the art of the Near East. Riyadh, Saudi Arabia: The King Abdulaziz Public Library, pp 142-147
Contributions on "Four chess pieces (7.49)", "Ewer (7.50)", "Textile with embroidered calligraphic band (7.51)", Incense burner (7.57)" and "Minbar for the Sultan Qa'itbay (7.67)"
Contadini, Anna (1995). In: Phillips, T., (ed.), Africa - The Art of a Continent. London: Royal Academy of Arts, pp 582-584, 588, 595
Islamic Ivory Chess Pieces, Draughtsmen and Dice in the Ashmolean Museum
Contadini, Anna (1995). In: Allan, James W., (ed.), Islamic Art in the Ashmolean Museum; Oxford Studies in Islamic Art. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp 30-51
‘Cuoridoro’: tecnica e decorazione di cuoi dorati veneziani e italiani con influssi islamici
Contadini, Anna (1989). In: Grube, E.J., (ed.), Arte veneziana e arte islamica : atti del Primo simposio internazionale sull'arte veneziana e l'arte islamica. Venice: Edizioni l’Altra Riva, pp 231-251
Simone Assemani, professore di lingue orientali a Padova
Contadini, Anna (1989). In: Gallotta, A, (eds.) and Marazzi, U, (eds.), La Conoscenza dell'Asia e dell'Africa in Italia nei secoli XVIII e XIX. Volume III. Tomo I. Napoli: Istituto Universitario Orientale, pp 209-245
'Cultural and Artistic Connections Between the Middle East and Europe During the Renaissance' - Keynote address at the Collége de France, Paris - 7 February 2019
Contadini, Anna(2019). In: Keynote address at the Collége de France, 7 February 2019 :Collége de France, Paris
Facets of Light: The Case of Rock Crystals. Fifth Hamad bin Khalifa Symposium on Islamic Art
Contadini, Anna(2013). In: The fifth biennial Hamad bin Khalifa Symposium on Islamic Art, God Is the Light of the Heavens and the Earth: Light in Islamic Art and Culture, Doha (Qatar)