Cultural Encounters: The Influence of Islamic Art in the World

Dr. Rosser-Owen completed her PhD in Islamic Art and Archaeology at the University of Oxford in 2002. She has been a curator in the Middle Eastern section at the Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A) since then, specializing in the arts of the Arab world, with a particular focus on the Islamic Mediterranean and North Africa.

She is the author of several publications, including Islamic Arts from Spain (2010) and Articulating the Ḥijāba: Cultural Patronage and Political Legitimacy in al-Andalus.

In 2015, she received an Art Fund New Collecting Award to research and acquire contemporary craft from Morocco, Tunisia, and Egypt. This work later led to her curation of Contemporary Ceramic Art from the Middle East, exhibited at the V&A in 2021.

She recently co-organized Ceramics from Islamic Lands, the first large-scale online conference dedicated to this field.

Benedict Carter earned his Bachelor Honours Degree in Theology and Religious Studies from Bristol University in 2005, specializing in Islamic studies and Arabic. He later completed an MA with distinction in Near and Middle Eastern Studies at The School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London, in 2007. His studies took him across the Islamic world, including time at Alexandria University in Egypt and the University of Jordan.

He joined Sotheby’s Middle East Department in 2008 and became Head of Auction Sales in 2013. Carter specializes in sourcing and selling Islamic works of art for the biannual Arts of the Islamic World and India auctions, as well as private sales. He has played a key role in several landmark single-owner sales, including A Princely Collection (2010), the two-part Stuart Cary Welch sales (2011), and IN AN INDIAN GARDEN: The Carlton Rochell Collection of Company School Paintings (2021).

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