Talk: Tilework in Tehran with Jennifer M. Scarce

Jennifer M. Scarce presents "Revival and Innovation: Techniques and Themes in the Tilework of the Tehran Nasiruddin Shah (1848-1896)". This fully illustrated presentation traces and analyzes the main development of tilework in Tehran, including the key technical innovations, the thematic influences and the career of a late Qajar tilemaker, Ali Muhammad Isfahani.

Ms. Scarce, Honorary Lecturer in Middle Eastern Cultures, Faculty of Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design, University of Dundee, Scotland, is a research and travel consultant, freelance curator and author. She has arranged many permanent and temporary exhibitions of Middle Eastern Culture for the National Museums, has taught courses on museum studies and Islamic art, lectured widely for conferences and special interest groups, and has supervised research students. She has travelled widely in the Middle East, North Africa and Eastern Europe – Iran, Turkey, the Arab Gulf states, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, Morocco, Tunisia, Romania and Bosnia. She has pursued many research projects on architecture and its decoration, dress and textile traditions, and has published widely in these areas –books, articles, catalogues.

Scarce is a visiting scholar to the Asian Art Museum's Research Institute.