Sheila R. Canby (born 10 January 1949) is Curator Emerita of the Department of Islamic Art at the

Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York City, colloquially "the Met", is the largest art museum in the Americas. Its permanent collection contains over two million works, divided among 17 curatorial departments. The main building at 1000 ...

, New York and a former curator of Islamic art and antiquities at the

British Museum The British Museum is a public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is among the largest and most comprehensive in existence. It docum ...

. She is a fellow of the

Royal Asiatic Society The Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland, commonly known as the Royal Asiatic Society (RAS), was established, according to its royal charter of 11 August 1824, to further "the investigation of subjects connected with and for the en ...

Early life

Sheila Canby was born on 10 January 1949. She earned her BA from

Vassar College Vassar College ( ) is a private liberal arts college in Poughkeepsie, New York, United States. Founded in 1861 by Matthew Vassar, it was the second degree-granting institution of higher education for women in the United States, closely follo ...

, summa cum laude, and her MA and PhD from

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...

.Sheila Canby.
Islamic Arts & Architecture. Retrieved 2 July 2017.

Career

Canby was the Metropolitan Museum of Art's curator of Islamic art from October 2009 to April 2019 and is a former curator of Islamic art and antiquities at the British Museum. She is a fellow of the

.Sheila R. Canby Elected to Head Metropolitan Museum's Department of Islamic Art.
Metropolitan Museum of Art, September 8, 2009. Retrieved 2 July 2017. She has held positions at the

Brooklyn Museum The Brooklyn Museum is an art museum located in the New York City borough of Brooklyn. At , the museum is New York City's second largest and contains an art collection with around 1.5 million objects. Located near the Prospect Heights, Crown H ...

Los Angeles County Museum of Art The Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) is an art museum located on Wilshire Boulevard in the Miracle Mile, Los Angeles, California, Miracle Mile vicinity of Los Angeles. LACMA is on Museum Row, adjacent to the La Brea Tar Pits (George C. Pa ...

Philadelphia Museum of Art The Philadelphia Museum of Art (PMoA) is an art museum originally chartered in 1876 for the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia. The main museum building was completed in 1928 on Fairmount, a hill located at the northwest end of the Benjamin Fr ...

, Fogg Art Museum, and the

Museum of Fine Arts, Boston The Museum of Fine Arts (often abbreviated as MFA Boston or MFA) is an art museum in Boston, Massachusetts. It is the 20th-largest art museum in the world, measured by public gallery area. It contains 8,161 paintings and more than 450,000 works ...

. She was a visiting lecturer at the

School of Oriental and African Studies SOAS University of London (; the School of Oriental and African Studies) is a public research university in London, England, and a member institution of the federal University of London. Founded in 1916, SOAS is located in the Bloomsbury ar ...

, London.

Selected publications

* ''Persian Painting''. British Museum Press, London, 1993. * ''Rebellious Reformer: Drawings and Paintings of Riza-Yi 'Abbasi of Isfahan''. Azimuth Editions, 1996. * ''Princes, Poets and Paladins: Islamic and Indian Paintings from the Collection of Prince and Princess Sadruddin Aga Khan''. British Museum Press, London, 1998. * ''The Golden Age Of Persian Art 1501-1722''. British Museum Press, London, 1999. * ''Safavid Art and Architecture''. British Museum Press, London, 2002. (Editor) * ''Hunt for Paradise: Court Arts of Safavid Iran 1501-76''. Skira Editore, 2003. (Edited with Jon Thompson) * ''Islamic Art In Detail''. British Museum Press, London, 2005. * ''Persian Love Poetry''. British Museum Press, London, 2005. (With Vesta Sarkhosh Curtis) * ''Shah 'Abbas: The Remaking of Iran''. British Museum Press, London, 2009. * ''Shah 'Abbas and The Treasures Of Imperial Iran''. British Museum Press, London, 2009. * ''The Shahnama of Shah Tahmasp: The Persian Book of Kings''.

Yale University Press Yale University Press is the university press of Yale University. It was founded in 1908 by George Parmly Day, and became an official department of Yale University in 1961, but it remains financially and operationally autonomous. , Yale Universi ...

, New Haven, 2014. * ''Islamic Art: Close-Up''. British Museum Press, London, 2015.

References

1949 births Living people Employees of the British Museum British art historians Historians of Islamic art British curators Fellows of the Royal Asiatic Society Vassar College alumni Harvard University alumni People associated with the Metropolitan Museum of Art Farabi International Award recipients American art historians American women art historians British women curators {{islam-historian-stub