#k.a.c. cresswell

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Decorative Sunday

For this decorative Sunday we present plates from English architectural historian K.A.C. Creswell’s two-volume Early Muslim Architecture. The first volume was published in 1932 and covers the Umayyads (C.E. 622-750). The second volume was published in 1940 and covers the early Abbāsids and Ṭūlūnids from the time of the Abbāsid Revolution until the restoration of Ṭūlūnid territory to Abbāsidian control (C.E. 751-905). Also covered in the second volume are the Umayyads in their exile in Córdoba.

Both volumes were printed by The Clarendon Press by John Johnson, printer for Oxford University. The Oxford University Press came to be known as the Clarendon Press after the press moved from its original location in the Sheldonian Theatre to the Clarendon Building in 1713. In the early twentieth century, Oxford began publishing some books through its London office, and The Clarendon Press moniker was used to differentiate between Oxford and London publications. Today, Oxford publications deemed of particular academic importance will bear the Clarendon Press imprint.

Keppel Archibald Cameron Creswell was an architectural historian and professor of Islamic Art and Architecture at Fuad University (now Cairo University) and later at American University in Cairo. He also collected an extensive private collection on Islamic Architecture, with over 3000 volumes and 11000 photographic prints. After being urged to return to England following the Suez Crisis in 1956, Creswell resolved to stay in Egypt, largely because his library could not be exported.

The first volume is dedicated to the enthusiastic patron of the project, King Fuad I. Fuad died in 1936 and the second volume is dedicated to his son and successor, King Farouk I. Volume one was printed in an edition of 500 copies, of which ours is number 175. Each volume features hundreds of line and half-tone illustrations incorporated into the text, was well as many full plates located at the back of the volume (81 in vol. 1 and 123 in vol. 2).

You can view more of our Decorative Sunday Posts here.

-Olivia, Special Collections Graduate Intern