Just Published: Ars Orientalis, Volume 55

Ars Orientalis 55 continues its exciting return to open submissions with articles that address different geographic areas, periods, and topics. Essays in this volume examine Palmyrene inscriptions, European representations of a Japanese screen, Ming China’s “beautiful women paintings” (meiren tu), and Isamu Noguchi’s engagement with early Indian sculpture.

This volume also introduces “New Directions,” an occasional feature that offers broader perspectives and new avenues of research in the field of Asian art history. This initiative launches with an article by Gülru Necipoğlu, the fifteenth recipient of the Freer Medal. Her article considers the dynamic artistic relationship of the medieval Persianate world with both Europe and China.

“Conversations from the Field” focuses on the issue of replicas and highlights how various institutions have used digital and physical facsimiles to engage with new audiences and underscore materiality.

The theme of replication continues in our “Digital Initiatives” feature. This piece addresses the possibilities and limitations of photogrammetric modeling to capture an object’s ritual context.

As always, we’re excited to share this volume and all past issues online free and open access.

Table of Contents

Introduction 
Massumeh Farhad and Sana Mirza

The Ernst Herzfeld Papers at the National Museum of Asian Art, Smithsonian Institution: Identifying the Palmyrene Squeezes
Eleonora Cussini

Nebuchadnezzar’s Draw: Revisiting Philips van Winghe’s Sketches of the Azuchi Screens in Lorenzo Pignoria’s Le imagini de gli dei de gli antichi
Mark K. Erdmann

The Courtesan’s “Role Portrait”: Brothel Performances and the Qiu Ying Models in Late Ming Suzhou
Peng Xu

名妓的“角色肖像”：晚明苏州青楼表演与仇英范式 
Peng Xu (徐芃)

The Matter of Sculpture: Isamu Noguchi and Early India
Kalyani Madhura Ramachandran

New Directions

The Jalayirid Contribution: A Topkapı  Palace Album with Images in the Persianate, Chinese, and European Manners (ca. 1350–1500)
Gülru Necipoğlu

Conversations from the Field

Reviving Neo-Assyrian Casts: Adam Aja in Conversation with Antonietta Catanzariti
Antonietta Catanzariti with Adam Aja

What Is a Replica: Reflections from Shōsōin THE SHOW: Bryan Lowe and Akiko Walley in Conversation with Kit Brooks
Kit Brooks with Bryan Lowe and Akiko Walley

Digital Initiatives

New Perspectives on Religious Art Through the Digital Twin: Two Stelae of Pārvatī from East India
Gerald Kozicz and Di Luo

Read more about AO, browse past volumes, and review the submission guidelines and deadlines at arsorientalis.si.edu.