Masterpieces from the Department of Islamic Art in The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Good product. Nice service.

This book is issued in conjunction with the opening of the revamped Islamic art galleries at the Metropolitan Museum. The Met's collection consists of over 12,000 items and 298 highlights are described in this volume. An introductory essay details the history of the collection and the display areas. Presumably due to publication deadlines, there are no illustrations of the new galleries. The items illustrated and described cover aspects of Islamic art emanating from civilizations ranging between Spain and Tunisia in the west to India in the east. The artworks cataloged are of the finest quality and generally in excellent states of preservation. The earliest pieces date from the seventh century. Included are ceramics, manuscripts, glass,textiles, carpets, calligraphy, metalwork and paintings.This book serves as a valuable general overview of Islamic art and would be be of value to the general reader as well at those with a specialist interest in this fascinating subject. There are many well sized color illustrations of good quality. Highly recommended.

The book presents its collection of Islamic art very well. I should have read the title closer because I was interested in existing preIslamic Persian art. What I found interesting was the number of Persian items in the collection that attested to what must have been a very talented group of artisans before Alexandar the Great conquered that area.

This book, however well-intended (or not) leaves much to be desired. For its steep price, one would have expected much more bang for the buck, but I realized immediately upon removing it from its packaging and flipping through its pages that it should most certainly not be judged by its cover, and should rather be judged by its lackluster and limited content. Much like a Hollywood B movie, the best part of this book is actually its front cover or dust jacket. If you are eager to let $50 of your hard-earned money sink in a almost totally uninspirational book about masterpieces of Islamic art, this book is certainly a great choice.

Will provide many long pleasurable hours of feasting for my eyes. Could eat that stuff up with a spoon! Just lovely. Food for the spirit.