Herat, the Pearl of Khurasan: Urban and Cultural Transformation under Shahrukh (reigned 1409–47)
Speaker David Roxburgh; Iran, Medallion with Plants, Birds, and a Turtle, 15th century
David Roxburgh, Harvard University
Iran, Medallion with Plants, Birds, and a Turtle (detail), folio 73 from the Diez album, 15th century, Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin.
April 10, 2024
The Dunhuang Foundation presents this lecture focusing on the city of Herat. Looking at selected elements of the city and its life in the 1420s and 1430s, David Roxburgh explores the dynamics and outcomes of a cultural achievement that secured Herat’s importance as an artistic center for centuries.
Following Timur’s death in 1405, his son and successor, Shahrukh (reigned 1409–47), established Herat as the capital and embarked on a program of redevelopment. Joined by other patrons of the Timurid elite, especially his son Baysunghur, Shahrukh created optimal conditions for cultural production in the arts. His rule also witnessed a resurgence in contacts with east Asia under Ming dynasty emperor Yongle (reigned 1402–24), exchanges that brought a new wave of contemporary objects from China to the “western lands.”
Plan Your Visit
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- Admission to the lecture is free with your ticket. On Wednesdays, the Museum is open with regular admission from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. The lecture starts at 6 p.m. in Lynn Wyatt Theater in the Kinder Building. The best Museum parking is in the Glassell Building garage (5101 Montrose Boulevard) and secondly the Kinder Building garage (5500 Main Street).
About the Speaker
David Roxburgh is the Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Professor of Islamic Art History at Harvard University, where he has taught since receiving his Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania in 1996. Roxburgh has co-curated exhibitions including Traces of the Calligrapher: Islamic Calligraphy in Practice, c. 1600–1900 at the MFAH and Turks: A Journey of a Thousand Years at the Royal Academy of Arts in London. He has published two books—Prefacing the Image: The Writing of Art History in Sixteenth-Century Iran and The Persian Album, 1400–1600: From Dispersal to Collection—and is working on two more: on the study of medieval Iranian architecture, and on the art and literature in Herat in the early 1400s.
All Learning and Interpretation programs at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, receive generous support from H-E-B; Institute of Museum and Library Services; Sempra Foundation; the Brown Foundation, Inc.; the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo; the Joe Barnhart Foundation; the Cockrell Family Fund; the CFP Foundation; Macey and Harry Reasoner; the Texas Commission on the Arts; and the Junior League of Houston, Inc.
Endowment funds are provided by the Louise Jarrett Moran Bequest; Caroline Wiess Law; Windgate Foundation; the William Randolph Hearst Foundation; Cyvia and Melvyn Wolff; the National Endowment for the Humanities; the Fondren Foundation; BMC Software, Inc.; the Wallace Foundation; the Neal Myers and Ken Black Children’s Art Fund; the Eleanor and Frank Freed Foundation; Medha and Shashank Karve; Virginia and Ira Jackson; Jesse H. Jones II; the CFP Foundation; the Favrot Fund; gifts in memory of John Wynne; Neiman Marcus Youth Arts Education; gifts in memory of Peter Lotz; and gifts in honor of Beth Schneider.