Participant Info

First Name
Rachel
Last Name
Parikh
Affiliation
Worcester Art Museum
Website URL
https://www.linkedin.com/in/rachel-parikh/
Keywords
History of Art, South Asian Art History, Islamic Art History, South Asian Arms and Armor, Islamic Arms and Armor
Additional Contact Information

Personal Info

Photo
About Me

Rachel Parikh is the Assistant Curator of Asian and Middle Eastern Art at the Worcester Art Museum (WAM). She oversees a collection of nearly 9,000 objects that represent the richness and diversity of Asia and the Middle East through a wide range of materials. Prior to joining WAM, Parikh was the Calderwood Curatorial Fellow of Asian Art at the Harvard Art Museums. She has also held curatorial positions at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in the Department of Arms and Armor and the Art Institute of Chicago in the Department of Asian Art. Parikh specializes in South Asian and Islamic paintings as well as arms and armor. She has presented her research internationally, and has published widely. Her book, The Khalili Falnamah: The Nasser D. Khalili Collection of Islamic Art (London: The Nour Foundation), is forthcoming in late 2021. She received her PhD from the University of Cambridge in 2014. You can follow her arms and armor page on Instagram: @rachel.parikh.

Recent Publications

“Might and the Menagerie: The Role of Animals in South Asian Arms and Armour,” in Orientations, 52:2, March/April 2021.

“Power and Piety: Islamic Talismans on the Battlefield,” with Maryam Ekhtiar, in Islamic Occultism in Theory and Practice, eds. Francesca Leoni, Liana Saif, Matthew Melvin-Koushki, Farouk Yahya (Leiden: Brill), 2020.

“Faith and Fate: The Khalili Falnama (MSS 979) and Shi’i Identity in Golconda,” in Iran and the Deccan: Persian Art, Culture and Talent in Circulation, ed. Keelan Overton (Bloomington: Indiana University Press), 2020.

“‘The King’s Boon Companion’: Falconry in Mughal Imperial Portraiture from Akbar to Azam Shah,” in  Raptor and Falconry Depictions Throughout The Millennia on a Global Scale, vol. II, ed. by Oliver Grimm, in collaboration with Karl-Heinz Gersmann and Anne-Lise Tropato (Hamburg: Wachholtz Murmann Publishers), 2020.

“Flights of Fancy: Falconry in Iranian Art from the 12th to 19th Century,” in Raptor and Falconry Depictions Throughout The Millennia on a Global Scale, vol. II, ed. by Oliver Grimm, in collaboration with Karl-Heinz Gersmann and Anne-Lise Tropato (Hamburg: Wachholtz Murmann Publishers), 2020.

Media Coverage
https://artdaily.cc/news/121423/Rachel-Parikh-appointed-Asian-Art-Curator-at-Worcester-Art-Museum#.YPH_uhNKibg
Country Focus
India, Iran, Turkey
Expertise by Geography
Asia, India, Middle East
Expertise by Chronology
2, 3, 4, 5
Expertise by Topic
Art & Architectural History, Book History, Material Culture, Museums