All Collections

Our Team

Over the course of five decades, the Khalili Collections has worked with many of the world’s leading authorities in the fields relating to each of the Eight Collections. The team comprises eminent scholars, curators, restorers, managers and editors.

Islamic Art

CURATOR

Nahla Nassar Curator and Registrar

GENERAL EDITOR

Dr Julian Raby Director of the Freer Gallery of Art and the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.; leading authority on Islamic art

EDITORIAL BOARD

Professor Sir Nasser D. Khalili (Chair)

Professor J.M. Rogers

Ralph Pinder-Wilson 

B.W. Robinson 

Robert Skelton

Nahla Nassar

Tim Stanley

Dr Rebecca M. Foote

Dr Pedro Moura Carvalho

AUTHORS AND CONTRIBUTORS

Rudolf Abraham Former Deputy Curator, Nasser D. Khalili Collection of Islamic Art, London

David Alexander Former Research Associate, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; specialist in Islamic arms and armour

Manijeh Bayani Specialist in Persian and Arabic epigraphy; contributor to most of the catalogues in the Nasser D. Khalili Collection of Islamic Art series

Professor Doris Behrens-Abouseif Former Nasser D. Khalili Chair of Islamic Art and Archaeology, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London; specialist in Mamluk arts and history

Professor Sheila S. Blair Norma Jean Calderwood University Professor of Islamic and Asian Art, Boston College, Boston, Massachusetts; specialist in Persian arts

Dr François de Blois Senior Research Associate, University College London; specialist in Semitic and Iranian languages and on the history of religions in the Near East in pre-modern times

Christopher Cavey Former Curator, Gemmological Association of Great Britain collections and member of its governing Council; special interest in the history of gemstones

Nada Chaldecott Art historian with a special interest in the arts of Central Asia and India

Henrietta Sharp Cockrell Former specialist in the Islamic Art Department, Christie’s, South Kensington, London

Dr Steven Cohen Independent textile historian, researcher, lecturer and writer specialising in the carpets and textiles of the Indian subcontinent

Professor Anna Contadini Professor of the History of Islamic Art, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London; specialist in Islamic works on paper

Georgette Cornu † Specialist in the technical analysis of textiles from the Arab world

Mitchell Abdul Karim Crites Art historian whose research primarily focuses on Mughal art, architecture and garden design; instrumental in a major revival of Indian and Islamic arts and crafts across West and South Asia

Jacqueline Coulter Formerly a Senior Director at Sotheby’s, London; specializes in carpets and textiles of the Islamic world

Professor Walter B. Denny Professor of Islamic Art, University of Massachusetts, Amherst; Charles Grant Ellis Research Associate in Oriental Carpets, The Textile Museum, Washington D.C.; specialist in Ottoman arts and Islamic carpets and textiles

Professor François Déroche Fellow of the French Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres; Director of studies, Ecole pratique des hautes études, Paris; specialist in early Qur’ans and the history of the handwritten book in the Islamic world

Dr Layla Diba Former Director, Negarestan Museum, Tehran; former Hagop Kevorkian Curator of Islamic Art, Brooklyn Museum of Art, New York; independent curator and art advisor, with a special interest in the arts and culture of Qajar and modern Iran

Dr Rebecca M. Foote Head of Publications, Nasser D. Khalili Collection of Islamic Art; specialist in early Islamic archaeology

Deborah Freeman Assistant Curator, Al-Sabah Collection, Dar al-Athar al-Islamiyyah, Kuwait; specialist in Arabic and Persian manuscripts

Dr Melanie Gibson Participates in a range of academic activities that include teaching and publishing, including series editor of the Gingko Library Art Series; specialist in ceramics and glass of the Islamic world

Dr Sidney M. Goldstein Former Associate Director, St Louis Art Museum, St Louis, Missouri; specialist in early Islamic glass

Dr Javad Golmohammadi Former Lecturer, Department of Archaeology and History of Art, Tehran University; independent Islamic art historian based in London working on a publication on wooden religious buildings and carved woodwork of Islamic Iran

Tony Goodwin Specialist in Byzantine and early Islamic coinage of the 7th century

Hero Granger-Taylor Historian of early textiles, London; recent work centres on excavated finds, particularly from desert sites in Egypt and the Near East

Professor Ernst J. Grube † Professor Emeritus in the History of Islamic Art, Università Ca’ Foscari di Venezia, Venice; first Curator of Islamic Art, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; specialist in Islamic painting and ceramics

Dr Rosalind Wade Haddon Researcher on the Samarra Finds Project, Victoria and Albert Museum, London; specialist in Islamic ceramics of the 14th century

Stephen Hirtenstein Publications Director, Muhyiddin Ibn ‘Arabi Society; co-founder of Anqa Publishing; specialist in the life, thought and writings of Ibn ‘Arabi

Rahul Jain Textile researcher and historian, New Delhi; specialist in technical and historical aspects of the Indian drawloom, the woven silks of Sultanate India, as well as the court velvets, sashes and luxury fabrics of Mughal India

Dr David James † Former Islamic Curator, Chester Beatty Library, Dublin; specialist in manuscripts of the Qur’an

Professor Ludvik Kalus Honorary Professor of the History of the Medieval East, University of Paris-Sorbonne; founder and director of the Thesaurus of Islamic Epigraphy project; specialist in Arabic epigraphy

Dr Derek Kennet Lecturer, Department of Archaeology, Durham University; archaeologist working in India and the Middle East

Professor Sir Nasser D. Khalili Founder of the Khalili Collections; Honorary Fellow of the University of London; Visiting Professor, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London

Shireen Ellinger Contributor the Nasser D. Khalili Collection of Islamic Art; interested in art and architecture of the Mamluk period with a special focus on textiles and metalwork

Professor Geoffrey Khan Fellow of the British Academy; Regius Professor of Hebrew, Cambridge University; fields of expertise include Arabic papyrology

Dr Mark G. Kramarovsky Senior Researcher, State Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg; archaeologist in the Crimea and authority on the arts of the Golden Horde

Dr Jens Kröger Former Curator, Museum für Islamische Kunst, Berlin; specialist in Islamic glass

Dr Linda York Leach † Specialist in Indian painting; author of a major catalogue of the Indian paintings in the Chester Beatty Library, Dublin

Mary McWilliams Norma Jean Calderwood Curator of Islamic and Later Indian Art, Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Harvard University Art Museums; specialist in Safavid textiles

Francis Maddison † Former Curator, Museum of the History of Science, University of Oxford; specialist in scientific instruments and their makers

Roberta Marin Assistant Curator, Nasser D. Khalili Collection of Islamic Art

Marielle Martiniani-Reber Chief Curator, Applied Arts Department, Musée d’art et d’histoire, Geneva; special interest in textiles of the Arab world

Behnaz Atighi Moghaddam Curator and research assistant at the Victoria and Albert Museum; specialist in calligraphy and painting from Iran and South Asia up to the 19th century

Dr Peter Morgan Former Director, British Institute of Persian Studies, Iran; research interests include Ilkhanid ceramics and tilework

Dr Pedro Moura Carvalho Deputy Director, Art and Programs, The Asian Art Museum, San Francisco; specialist in Mughal art and European contributions to the arts of India, Iran.

Nahla Nassar Curator and Registrar, Nasser D. Khalili Collection of Islamic Art; special interest in Islamic pilgrimage related textiles

Professor Alastair Northedge Professor of Islamic art and architecture, Université de Paris-Sorbonne, Paris; archaeologist specialising in early Islamic material culture

Dr Jack Ogden Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries; former Chief Executive, Gemmological Association of Great Britain; specialist in the historical development of jewellery materials and techniques

Dr Alison Ohta Director, Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland; specialist in the technique and ornament of Mamluk bookbinding

Dr Rachel Parikh Currently the Calderwood Curatorial Fellow of South Asian Art at Harvard Art Museums; specialist in South Asian and Islamic works on paper as well as arms and armour

Ralph Pinder-Wilson † Former Keeper of the Department of Oriental Antiquities, British Museum, London; specialist in the arts of Iran, India and Afghanistan

B.W. Robinson † Former Fellow of the British Academy; former Keeper of Metalwork, Victoria and Albert Museum, London; specialist in Islamic painting and the arts of Qajar Iran

Professor J.M. Rogers Fellow of the British Academy; Honorary Curator, Nasser D. Khalili Collection of Islamic Art; Former Deputy Keeper of the Department of Oriental Antiquities, British Museum, London; inaugural Nasser D. Khalili Chair of Islamic Art and Archaeology, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London; specialist in many aspects of Islamic culture and history, especially Seljuk and Ottoman arts

Dr Martina Rugiadi Assistant Curator, Department of Islamic Art, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; specialist in Ghaznavid stonework

Dr Nabil F. Safwat Former Lecturer, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London; specialist in Islamic calligraphy and the arts of the book

Professor Emilie Savage-Smith Fellow of the British Academy; Professor of the History of Islamic Science, Oxford University; specialist in Islamic science, medicine and magic

Dr Emily Shovelton Independent researcher and lecturer, currently tutor for the Islamic Art module at the Victoria and Albert Museum; specialist in illustrated Persian and Indo- Persian manuscripts

Dr Eleanor Sims Editor, Islamic Art for the East-West Foundation, New York (originally Co-editor with her late husband, Professor Ernst J. Grube); special expertise is eastern Islamic painting

Professor Nicholas Sims-Williams Fellow of the British Academy; Research Professor of Iranian and Central Asian Studies, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London; specialist in Middle Iranian languages of Eastern Iran and Central Asia, including Sogdian and Bactrian

Robert Skelton Former Keeper of the Indian Department, Victoria and Albert Museum, London; specialist in the arts of India

Milton Sonday Former Curator of Textiles, Cooper-Hewitt Museum, New York; specialist in the structures and continuous patterns of textiles of all cultures

Professor Svat Soucek Professor Emeritus of History, Princeton University, New Jersey; specialist in historical cartography

Michael Spink Independent researcher, lecturer and writer on Islamic and Indian art; Fellow of the Gemmological Association of Great Britain

Tim Stanley Senior Curator, Middle Eastern collection, Victoria and Albert Museum, London; specialist in Islamic manuscript production, calligraphy and the decorative arts and has a longstanding interest in Ottoman culture

Professor Wheeler M. Thackston Professor Emeritus of the Practice in Persian and Other Near Eastern Languages, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts

Dr Cristina Tonghini Lecturer in the History of Islamic Art, Università Ca’ Foscari di Venezia, Venice; archaeologist in Syria and specialist in its Islamic ceramics

Dr Elena Tsareva Leading researcher, Peter the Great Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography of the Russian Academy of Sciences, St Petersburg; specialist in textiles and costume of northern Eurasia

Dr Aram R. Vardanyan Curator of Islamic coins in the History Museum of Armenia as well as a senior scientific researcher in the Institute of Oriental Studies NAS in Yerevan; specialist in Islamic coinage and history

Dr Stephen Vernoit Former Assistant Professor, Al-Akhawayn University, Ifrane, Morocco; former Lecturer, Institute for Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies, Durham University; specialist in the art and cultural history of the Islamic world in the 17th–20th centuries

Marie-France Vivier Head of the Magreb section, Musée du quai Branly, Paris; specialist in North African textiles

Dr Marian Wenzel † Islamic art historian with a special interest in Islamic Jewellery

Dr Elaine Wright Curator of the Islamic Collections, Chester Beatty Library, Dublin; specialist in Islamic manuscript Production

Mohamed Zakariya Distinguished contemporary calligrapher, now working in Washington, D.C.

Japanese Art Of The Meiji Period Art

CURATOR

Dror Elkvity Curator and Registrar

JOINT EDITORS

Dr Oliver Impey and

Malcolm Fairley

Dr Oliver Impey † Senior Curator, Ashmolean Museum; Reader in Japanese Art, University of Oxford

Malcolm Fairley Formerly of Sotheby’s and Barry Davies Oriental Art; now co-owner of the Asian Art Gallery, London

Professor Sir Nasser D. Khalili

Hida Toyojiro

Sato Doshin

Major Andrew Keelan

Dror Elkvity

HONORY ADVISORS

Dr Barbara Ford Associate Curator of the Department of Eastern Art, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

B.W. Robinson † Former Keeper of Metalwork, Victoria and Albert Museum, London

Lawrence Smith Former Keeper of the Department of Japanese Antiquities, British Museum, London

AUTHORS AND CONTRIBUTORS

Dr Gunhild Avitable Director of the Japan Society Gallery, New York; former Curator of Far Eastern Art, Museum of Applied Art in Frankfurt-am-Main

Ellen P. Conant Independent art historian, New York

Joe Earle Senior Consultant for Japanese Works of Art, Bonhams, London; former Director of the Japan Society Gallery, New York and Chair of the Department of the Art of Asia, Oceania and Africa, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Massachusetts

Dror Elkvity Curator of the Enamel, Spanish, Swedish and Aramaic Collections

Dr Rupert Faulkner Senior Curator, Japan, Asian Department, Victoria and Albert Museum, London

Goke Tadaomi Former Professor, Faculty of Domestic Sciences, Kyoritsu Women’s University

Victor Harris Former Keeper of the Department of Japanese antiquities at the British Museum, London

Hida Toyojiro President, Akita University of Arts; Curator, Crafts Gallery, National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo

Jack Hillier † Renowned art historian and author of many publications on Japanese art

Dr Janet Hunter Saji Professor of Economic History, London School of Economics

Julia Hutt Curator, Japan, Asian Department, Victoria and Albert Museum, London

Gregory Irvine
Honorary Curator, and Honorary Senior Research Fellow (Japan) in the Research Department at the Victoria and Albert Museum

Anna Jackson Keeper of the Asian Department, Victoria and Albert Museum, London

Major Andrew Keelan Former Chief Coordinator of the Khalili Collection

Professor Sir Nasser D. Khalili Honorary Fellow of the University of London; Visiting Professor, Department of Art and Archaeology, School of Oriental and African Studies, London

Clare Pollard Curator of Japanese Art, Department of Eastern Art, Ashmolean Museum, Oxford; former art historian and Curator of the East Asian collections at the Chester Beatty Library, Dublin

Sato Doshin Former Professor of Japanese art history, Faculty of Fine Arts, Tokyo University of the Arts

Vibeke Woldbye Former Curator, Danish Museum of Decorative Arts, Copenhagen

Edward Wrangham † Author and collector of Japanese lacquer specialising in Inro

Yamazaki Tsuyoshi Professor of History and Craft, Kanazawa University of Arts; former Curator at the Fine Arts Division of the Agency for Cultural Affairs of Japan; former Curator, Osaka City Museum

Hajj And The Arts Of Pilgrimage

CURATORS

Nahla Nassar Curator and Registrar

Qaisra Khan Independent Curator

AUTHORS AND CONTRIBUTORS

Dr Bilal Badat

Dr Sami De Giosa

Ms Shireen el Kassem

Professor Sir Nasser D. Khalili

Mr Seif El Rashidi

Dr Sabiha Gologlu

Professor Alastair Hamilton

Dr Edmund Hayes

Ms Qaisra Khan

Dr Jan Loop

Dr Michael Christopher Low

Dr Sergio Carro Martín

Professor Ulrich Marzolph

Professsor Richard McGregor

Dr Luitgard Mols

Dr Harry Munt

Ms Nahla Nassar

Mr James Nicholson

Mr Seif el Rashidi

Mr Yousuf Saeed

Mr Saarthak Singh

Dr John Slight

Dr Mehmet Tütüncü

Dr Aram Vardanyan

Dr Arnoud Vrolijk

Dr Muhammad Isa Waley

Dr Peter Webb

Mr Michael Wolfe

Aramaic Documents

CURATOR

Dror Elkvity Curator and Registrar

AUTHORS AND CONTRIBUTORS

Joseph Naveh † Former Professor Emiritus of West Semitic epigraphy and palaeography, Hebrew University, Jerusalem

Shaul Shaked Professor Emeritus of Iranian Studies and Comparative Religion, Hebrew University, Jerusalem

Kimono

CURATOR

Dror Elkvity Curator and Registrar

AUTHORS AND CONTRIBUTORS

Professor Kendall Brown Professor of Asian Art, California State University, Long Beach

Dr Chrstine Guth Asian Specialism Tutor, Royal College of Art, London

Professor Iwao Nagasaki Kyoritsu Women’s University, Tokyo

Anna Jackson Keeper of the Asian Department, Victoria and Albert Museum, London

Professor Timon Screech Professor of the History of Art, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London

Swedish Textiles

CURATOR

Dror Elkvity Curator and Registrar

AUTHORS AND CONTRIBUTORS

Viveka Hansen Stiftelsen Institutet for Kulturforskning, IK Foundation

Spanish Damascene

CURATOR

Dror Elkvity Curator and Registrar

AUTHORS AND CONTRIBUTORS

Dr James D. Lavin † Former Professor of Spanish, College of William & Mary, Williamsburg, Virginia

Ramiro Larrañaga † Former master engraver and damascener; Basque historian and author

Claude Blair † Leading authority on European armour

Enamels Of The World

CURATOR

Dror Elkvity Curator and Registrar

AUTHORS AND CONTRIBUTORS

Julia Clarke Deputy Director and Senior Specialist, Objects of Vertu, Sotheby’

Tatiana Fabergé Member of the Fabergé Heritage Council, and greatgranddaughter of Peter Carl Fabergé

Malcolm Fairley Formerly of Sotheby’s and Barry Davies Oriental Art; now co-owner of the Asian Art Gallery, London

Dr Oliver Impey † Senior Curator, Ashmolean Museum; Reader in Japanese Art, University of Oxford

Rose Kerr Former Keeper of the Far Eastern Department, Victoria and Albert Museum, London

Daniela Mascetti Senior Director, International Senior Specialist, Jewellery, Sotheby’s

Dr Pedro Moura Carvalho Deputy Director, Art and Programs, The Asian Art Museum, San Francisco;
specialist in Mughal art and European contributions to the arts of India, Iran, Japan and China post 1500

Dr Jack Ogden Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries; former Chief Executive, Gemmological Association of Great Britain; specialist in the historical development of jewellery materials and techniques

Professor J.M. Rogers Fellow of the British Academy; Honorary Curator, Nasser D. Khalili Collection of Islamic Art; Former Deputy Keeper of the Department of Oriental Antiquities, British Museum, London; inaugural

Nasser D. Khalili Chair of Islamic Art and Archaeology, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London; specialist in many aspects of Islamic culture and history, especially Seljuk and Ot toman arts

Haydn Williams Former Head of Portrait Miniatures, Objects of Vertu and Russian works of art, Sotheby’s

Chief Technology Officer

Pouya Hosseinpour Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Nocturnal Cloud