Professor Anna Contadini (SOAS) – The Pisa Griffin and the Mari-Cha Lion: Metalwork, Art, and Technology in the Medieval Islamicate Mediterranean

Anna Contadini is Professor of the History of Islamic Art and Head of the School of Arts at SOAS, University of London. She is also the Director of the “Griffin and Lion Project”. Her areas of interest are Arabic and Persian illustrated manuscripts, material culture of the Islamic world, and the artistic and cultural connections between the Middle East and Europe, especially Italy.

In this lecture, Professor Contadini will discuss subjects from her latest publication The Pisa Griffin and the Mari-Cha Lion; an interdisciplinary study focusing on two unique bronze sculptures produced between the late eleventh and the early twelfth century. Through scientific, historical and art historical analyses this lecture will explore the many issues that surround them, including fundamental questions of location and period, purpose and patronage, their transcultural meanings, and their agency as the function of each has mutated.