San Francisco Ceramic Circle

Illustrated Lecture

"Ming Porcelain and the Ceramics of the Ottoman Empire"

by

Professor Walter B. Denny

Professor of Art History

University of Massachusetts at Amherst

10.00 AM Sunday, 18th February 2007

Florence Gould Theater, Palace of the Legion of Honor

Lincoln Park, San Francisco

About the Lecture: The blue-and-white porcelain of Ming China was avidly collected throughout the Islamic Middle East in the 15th and 16th centuries; Islamic miniature paintings document its use in Islamic courts, and surviving Ming examples in the "Islamic taste" sometimes even bear Arabic inscriptions.  In the early 16th century, ceramic artists working for the Ottoman court in Istanbul and in Iznik, ancient Nicaea, began to experiment with Ming forms on underglaze-painted fritware.  Over the 16th century, the inspiration of Ming porcelain had a profound influence on the Ottoman ceramics of Iznik, that eventually led to the creation some of the most original, creative and visually exciting artistic products of the Ottoman Empire.

About our speaker :  Professor Walter B. Denny has taught at the University of Massachusetts/Amherst Art History Program since 1970.  His primary field of teaching and research is the art and architecture of the Islamic world, in particular the artistic traditions of the Ottoman Turks, Islamic carpets and textiles, and issues of economics and patronage in Islamic art. At UM/A he teaches a large-enrollment general art history survey course every fall, and is also in charge of the Museum Studies Seminar.  He has held curatorial positions in Islamic art at the Harvard University Art Museums and the Smith College Museum of Art, and in September of 2002 was named Charles Grant Ellis Research Associate in Oriental Carpets at The Textile Museum, Washington, DC, where he was a Trustee for six years in the 1980s.  He has curated more than two dozen exhibitions, and is the author of several dozen articles. His recent books include Gardens of Paradise: Turkish Tiles 15th-17th Centuries (Istanbul 1998), Anatolian Carpets: Masterpieces from the Museum of Turkish and Islamic Arts, Istanbul (Bern,1999), and, with two-co-authors, Ipek: Ottoman Imperial Silks and Velvets  (London, 2001. Iznik: La céramique turque et l'art ottoman (Paris, Citadelles & Mazenod, 2004) appeared in English (London, Thames & Hudson) and German (Munich, Hirmer) in early 2005. Twenty thousand of his photographs are currently being digitized to be made available for teaching through ARTStor, a project of the Mellon Foundation. He has delivered over five hundred public lectures and scholarly papers around the world in the past thirty-five years, and has participated actively in many organizations in his field, serving twice as president of Historians of Islamic Art, and today serving on the Board of Governors of the Institute of Turkish Studies in Washington.

Next meeting: Sunday, 25th March 2007. "Cargo and Adventure: Rhode Island and the China Trade". An illustrated lecture by Thomas Michie, Curator of Decorative Art, Los Angeles County Museum of Art.