Islam in Europe

Abstract: The imprint of Islam in the European Middle Ages is a topic of vital interest to the field of global medieval art histories. Though our focus for over thirty years has been on exhibiting both European art and Islamic art, we have never before looked at both together in one project. This exhibition uses the lens of visual culture to explore the inherent interconnectedness of these two worlds and their often porous borders. The group of objects included here date from the early ninth century through to the seventeenth century, and is connected by an important thread: the continuous assimilation of Islamic aesthetics, craft technology, luxury objects and culture into the European visual repertoire