Michael Spink

Michael Spink has been involved with Islamic and Indian art for over 40 years, with a particular interest in jewellery and metalwork. He was a director of Spink and Son until 1998, and then worked on a freelance basis. He produced his first catalogue of Islamic jewellery in 1986 and obtained his FGA Fellowship in 1991. From 2005 he has been an independent scholar. He was a contributing author for 'In the Realm of Gods and Kings', a catalogue of an exhibition of Indian art and jewellery from the Polsky collection held at the Asia Society in New York in 2004. Michael is co-author of 'The Art of Adornment', the catalogue of Islamic jewellery in the Khalili collection, published in 2013, which describes over 600 pieces dating between the 7th and 19th centuries together with supporting essays. He is one the principal authors of 'Beyond Extravagance', which catalogues an important group of Mughal jewellery from the Al Thani collection. He has been part of the team cataloguing of a group of edged weapons of India and Iran in the Wallace Collection, London. His publications include ‘Dragons and Arabesques: Jade Carving in Persia and Central Asia in the 15th Century’, in the Transactions of the Oriental Ceramic Society 2015-16. He contributed a chapter ‘Gold and Enamels’, in the catalogue ‘From the Great Mughals to the Maharajas: Jewels from the Al Thani Collection’, for the exhibition held at the Grand Palais, Paris in 2017. A chapter on Cartier jewellery and India was contributed to 'The Cartier Collection. Jewellery' edited by Francois Chaille (2019). He has also contributed to the Encyclopaedia Iranica. Michael has lectured on Islamic and Indian jewellery, and other topics including jade and Indian edged weapons, in London and New York. Recently he published two volumes: 'The “World-Capturer” Sword and Other Recorded Weapons of Emperor Shah Jahan' (2019) and 'The Indian Gem-Set Sword of Major-General Claude Martin' (2020). Michael’s current projects include completing 'Brasses, Bronze and Silver of Islamic Lands', a catalogue of the Islamic metalwork in the Khalili collection, amounting to over 900 items, to be published in four parts.