Eros and Sexuality in Islamic Art

Francesca Leoni is the Yousef Jameel Curator of Islamic Art, Ashmolean Museum of Art and Archaeology, University of Oxford, UK. Mika Natif is Assistant Curator of Islamic and Later Indian Art, Division of Asian and Mediterranean Art, Harvard Art Museums, USA.

• Introduction: Eros and sexuality in Islamic art: old issues and new perspectives, Francesca Leoni and Mika Natif; Making love not war: the iconography of the cockfight in medieval Egypt, Fahmida Suleman; The generative garden: sensuality, male intimacy, and eternity in Govardhan's illustration of Sa'di's Gulistan, Mika Natif; Where have all the boys gone? The lady of the 'sala de justica' ceilings and Nasrid poetics of sacred and profane love, Cynthia Robinson; Visibly foreign, visibly female: the eroticization of the zan-i farangi in 17th-century Persian painting, Amy S. Landau; Frontiers of visual taboos: painted indecencies in Isfahan, Sussan Babaie; Ottomanizing pornotopia: changing visual codes in 18th-century Ottoman erotic miniatures, Tulay Artan and Irvin Cemil Schick; 'Not to toil in lonely obsession': modern Persian erotica in the Kinsey Institute, Christiane J. Gruber; Index.

'Francesca Leoni and Mika Natif, curators at the Ashmolean Museum and the Harvard Art Museums respectively, are well placed to bring together this timely new collection, which taken as a whole asserts that the obvious should no longer be wilfully overlooked. The result is an interesting investigation into cultural attitudes to sex.' Art Newspaper