In 1765, the Qianlong emperor (r. 1736-95) commanded Jesuit artists residing at his court to design pictures commemorating recent military conquests of foreign territory. Shortly thereafter, a set of sixteen drawings of these battles was sent to the Parisian engraver Charles Coc
A Sense of Place | History | Wars
Image
The woodblock print designer Katsushika Hokusai (1760-1849) is one of Japan’s most celebrated artists. During a hugely productive artistic career, he created an astonishing range of works, including prints of beautiful women, landscapes, flowers and animals, as well as illustrat
A Sense of Place | Religion | Fuji, Mount (Japan)
Image
This painted scroll of Scenes from a Noh Play (Manzai no Tsutsumi emaki) dates to the Edo period and was created during the middle of the seventeenth century. Noh is a fourteenth-century form of theatre originally patronised by Japan’s samurai warrior class. It became a court en
A Sense of Identity | Arts | Theatre
Image
Western knowledge of many works of the greatest thinkers of ancient Greece, including Euclid, was lost during the so-called Dark Ages (the period from about the late fifth century AD to the year 1000). However, between the late eighth century and the tenth centuries, most o
A Sense of Freedom | Mathematics | Geometry
Image
This folio is from an album compiled for the Mughal emperors Jahangir (r. 1605-27) and Shah Jahan (r. 1627-58) between about 1612 and 1640. In his memoirs, Jahangir, whose mother was Hindu, describes Holi, the exuberant Hindu festival: ‘Thursday is the Holi, which in their
A Sense of Place | Manners and customs | Religion
Image
This Qur'an is one of the great treasures of the Chester Beatty Library. It is important on a number of counts, but especially as it is a rare example of the work of Ibn al-Bawwab (d. 1022), one of three great medieval masters of Islamic calligraphy. Ibn al-Bawwab is espe
A Sense of Identity | Qur'an | Islamic calligraphy
Image
Usually, an illuminated heading marks the beginning of each of the 114 chapters of the Qur'an. This one marks the start of chapter 32, which bears the title al-Sajda (The Prostration) and which deals with the mysteries of Creation, Time and the Final End.
A Sense of Identity | Qur'an | Creation (Islam)
Image
Badi al-Zaman Al-Jazari wrote his Book of Ingenious Mechanical Devices in 1206 in response to a request from his patron, a minor king in Diyarbekir (in what is now south-east Turkey). The text includes diagrams and instructions for the construction of fifty mechanical dev
A Sense of Freedom | Technology | Mechanical devices
Image
This magnificent Book of Hours (Use of Paris) was executed for Prigent de Coëtivy (1400-50), who was Admiral of France and, next to the Duc de Berry, one of the greatest book-collectors of the period. The 148 miniatures are mainly attributed to the 'Master of the Duke of Be
A Sense of Freedom | Coëtivy, Prignet de, 1400-1450 | Illumination of books and manuscripts
Image
In twenty scenes, this painted handscroll tells the Tale of Oriole (Yingying zhuan), one of the the most famous love stories in Chinese literature. Set in the late eighth century, it centers around the romance of Oriole (Yingying), the beautiful seventeen-year old daughter
A Sense of Freedom | Arts | Love stories
Image
Scenes of royal life were a popular subject for depiction in parabaik folding books at the Burmese court of Mandalay during the late nineteenth century. These openings show the training of hunting elephants and other mounted exercises.
A Sense of Identity | Courts and courtiers | Animals
Image
The historiated initial ‘I’ marks the beginning of the Book of Genesis: In Principio creavit Deus caelum et terram, or ‘In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth’. Each line of text is written in decreasing size, a decorative technique known as diminuendo. The
A Sense of Place | Creation | Biblical cosmology
Image