Four miniatures recently rediscovered: Christian Art in Muslim Anatolia and manuscript trade in 20th-century Europe, lecture by Ioanna Rapti (École pratique des Hautes Études – Sciences religieuses), King’s College London, March 1, 2016, 5:30–7:00 pm

This lecture will focus on four miniatures from a private collection, which belonged to a quire containing a prefatory cycle of illustrations that has been removed from an Armenian Gospel book. Comparison with other leaves from the same manuscript will attempt to reconstruct the initial programme of the book, while evidence from the colophons will supplement our understanding of a rather overlooked masterpiece of Armenian illumination. Finally the removal of the quire, its arrival to Europe and its eventual dissemination will introduce the issue of the appreciation of Eastern Christian art in European connoisseurship and art trade.

Ioanna Rapti is Professor (Directrice d’études) of Art and Archaeology of the Byzantine world and the Christian East at the École pratique des Hautes Études – Sciences religieuses. She is also the director of the Collection chrétienne et byzantine / Centre Millet, member of the UMR8167 and secretary of the journal Cahiers archéologiques. In her PhD she investigated Armenian book production and illumination in Genoese Crimea, while her post-doctoral work has mainly dealt with various aspects of Armenian Cilicia. She has been co-curator and editor of the catalogues of the Louvre exhibitions Armenia Sacra (2007) and Sainte Russie (2010). Before her current appointment in Paris she held a Newton Fellowship at KCL (2012-13).