Medieval metalwork dating from the tenth to thirteenth centuries is one of the artistic highlights of the Iranian world, as well as of the Musée du Louvre in Paris which holds more than 80 objects from this period. This is one of the most important collections in the world but until now the objects, some well-known and others quite unknown, have never been studied or published as a single group.

ISLAMETAL, the ambitious project that carried out the archaeometallurgical research on these objects, was established to provide vital new information on the processes, places, and craftsmen linked to their production. This far-reaching investigation, which included material analyses as well as close examinations of each object, is at the core of this volume and allowed the author Annabelle Collinet, with her collaborator David Bourgarit, to propose new categories for many of the objects. This book, a translation of the French original published in 2021, offers a fresh look at these objects, providing a comprehensive overview of medieval production, a full technical analysis and a presentation of the collection through the lens of its centres of manufacture, as well as the functions and contexts in which the pieces were used. Each object is fully described and illustrated in colour with many close up or X-ray images. All the inscriptions were read and are published here in the original Arabic accompanied by their translations.

Annabelle Collinet is in charge of the Medieval Iranian Collection at the Département des Arts de l’Islam at the Louvre Museum in Paris.

Melanie Gibson is Editor of the Gingko Art Series. She lectures widely and her publications focus on the ceramics, glass and sculpture produced in the Islamic world.

David Bourgarit is an archaeometallurgist, research scientist at Centre de Recherche et de et de Restauration des Musées de France.

Yannick Lintz is the former director of the Département des Arts de l’Islam at the Louvre Museum in Paris and the current director of the Musée Guimet in Paris.