On the occasion of the special exhibition «In the Name of the Image»
Along with the Prophet’s relics, verbal icons of Muhammad known as hilyes count among the most popular forms of religious art during the late Ottoman period. While paintings have been the subject of scholarly inquiry, an otherwise little-known type of hilye production involves the insertion of verbal icons into transparent glass bottles. This talk explores a selection of such hilye bottles as well as their possible origins in Christian sacred springs in Constantinople/Istanbul. Within Muslim devotional settings and hydrotherapeutic traditions, however, hilye bottles crafted a new kind of prophetic pharmacon, in which Muhammad was art fully concretized as the ultimate elixir vitae.
Welcome note and introduction by Dr. Axel Langer, Curator for the Art of the Islamic Near and Middle East (Museum Rietberg).
Speaker: Prof. Christiane Gruber, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
The event will take place online. You will receive the access link (zoom) by email the day before the event.
Series of lectures on the occasion of the special exhibition «In the Name of the Image»:
Ort: online
Sprache: English
Verfügbarkeit & Tickets: here
