Ink, Silk, and Gold explores the dynamic and complex traditions of Islamic art through more than 115 major works in a dazzling array of media, reproduced in full color and exquisite detail - manuscripts inscribed with gold, paintings on silk, elaborate metalwork, intricately woven textiles, luster-painted ceramics, and more. These objects, which originated within an Islamic world that ranges from Western Europe to Indonesia and across more than thirteen centuries, share a distinctive relationship to the materials they are made of: their color, shape, texture, and technique of production all convey meaning. Enhanced by texts from an international team of scholars and drawing on the latest technical information, Ink, Silk, and Gold is an inviting introduction to the riches of the Islamic art collection at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and a window into a vibrant global culture.

The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, is home to an important collection of artworks from South Asia that spans a large geographical area – comprising India and the countries that surround it – and more than four millennia. Among these objects are expressive figures in bronze and stone, dazzlingly intricate miniature paintings, luxury textiles and exquisite metalwork. Arranged thematically around dualities of art and craft, sacred and secular, Hindu and Muslim, real and ideal, male and female, and local and foreign – reflecting and challenging the dualistic thinking often applied to South Asian art – these works of art reveal the richness and depth of South Asian art and culture.