Stuart Cary Welch and Kimberly Masteller With essays by Mary McWilliams and Craigen W. Bowen

2004. 249 pp., 116 color and 19 b/w illus., 8-3/4 x 11 in.

ISBN 1-891771-38-8. Paper. $35.00. Copublished with Yale University Press.

Stuart Cary Welch's collection of Persian, Turkish, and Indian art is renowned throughout the world for its quality and depth. In 1999 Welch made a generous gift of drawings from his collection to the Harvard University Art Museums. Spanning five centuries and extending from Istanbul to Calcutta, the drawings represent the great empires of the Ottomans in Turkey, the Safavids in Iran, and the Mughals in India. This beautifully illustrated book presents more than seventy superb drawings from the Stuart Cary Welch collection-some of which are counted among the greatest Indian, Persian, or Turkish drawings ever made-and explores the connections between the arts and artists of the three cultures.

The contributors to the book shed light on many aspects of this comprehensive collection of drawings and on the artists who created them, while Welch offers an engaging account of his trials and triumphs while acquiring the works in his unparalleled collection.

Stuart Cary Welch is curator emeritus, Department of Islamic and Later Indian Art, Harvard University Art Museums; Kimberly Masteller is assistant curator of Islamic and Later Indian art at the Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Harvard University Art Museums; Mary McWilliams is Norma Jean Calderwood Curator of Islamic and Later Indian Art at the Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Harvard University Art Museums; and Craigen W. Bowen is deputy director and Philip and Lynn Straus Conservator of Works on Paper at the Straus Center for Conservation, Harvard University Art Museums.