Page 25 - BUCKLAND BRIEF HISTORY+ADDENDUM

Lorna Raby was born in Singapore and educated in the USA. She studied photography in London where she met and married Julian Raby and together they co-founded Azimuth Editions to publish works by Julian and other independent authors working on behalf of private collectors such as Nasser David Khalili, a British-Iranian scholar, collector, and philan- thropist based in London and the founder of the Khalili Collections, which is said to include the finest and most comprehensive collection of Islamic art in private hands.
The Ismailis:An Illustrated History Hardcover – 2008 by Farhad., Hirji, Zulfikar Daftary (Author) Published by Azimuth Editions/Lorna Raby
So....who is the client who has collected Islam's finest treasures?
Dr. Nasser David Khalili, belongs to a family of Jewish Iranian art dealers who left Iran when the Shah fell in 1979. He is now an American citizen. He has lived in Britain since 1980 and has an English wife and three sons.
The Khalili art collection is spectacular. It contains 20,000 items, including 8,000 coins and has the best group of Korans in the world (with the exception of the Topkapi collection in
lorna raby azimuth editions
Nabil Saidi of Sotheby's recalls that Khalili began collecting 18th and 19th-century Persian lacquer in the early 1980s.This was apparently the first of his collections and Saidi suggests that it may have sparked the idea of collecting more widely. Lacquer prices had collapsed in 1978, so it was not too expensive. A PhD thesis, based on his collection of Persian lacquer, earned Khalili a doctorate from London University's School of Oriental and African Studies in 1988.
In 1985 Khalili let other dealers know that he was in the market for the rarest and finest
Azimuth Editions publishes collec- tions from the world’s most internation- ally acclaimed museums such as the The Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, Russia, the second largest museum in
the world, founded in 1764 when the Empress Catherine the Great acquired
an impressive collection of paintings
from the influential Berlin merchant Johann Ernst Gotzkowsky.
Istanbul), many of them beautifully illuminated. It has 500 Koran manuscripts, compared to the British Library's 60.
The collection of Islamic and pre-Islamic Middle Eastern glass is among the best in the world and nobody can equal it’s 10th Century cut glass. In every other field - metalwork, ceramics, jewellery, lacquer, coins, seals, textiles - it has some of the largest collections in the world which include many masterpieces.
Khalili began dealing out of NewYork in the 1970s. 'I used to give him little things to sell when he was a student,' said Mehdi Mah- boubian, who was the most important of the group of Jewish Iranian art dealers in Tehran in the 1970s and acted as personal adviser to the Shah and Shahbanu.
In 1980, still helped by Mahboubian, Khalili opened a gallery in London’s prestigious area of Mayfair, dealing in Islamic art and antiquities.
The curator of the entire collection is Prof. J R Rogers, formerly keeper of Islamic art at the British Museum, but elevated in 1989 to the Nasser D Khalili Chair of Islamic Art and Archaeology at London University.
Lorna Raby’s Azimuth Editions has been engaged in the design and publishing of the entire 26 catalogues of the Nour Foundation’s collections for many years, with research papers and a series of facsimile editions of its best and unique manuscripts.
The retained editor is Dr Julian Raby who works alongside various authors, all of whom are amongst some of the world's top Islamic scholars and academics.
Khalili’s Nour Foundation - nour means 'light' in Arabic, Persian and Turkish - is owned by the Khalili Family Trust and the whole unique collection of priceless artifacts belongs to the Nour Foundation.
From accepting the initial briefing from the client,Azimuth’s responsibility is to project manage all aspects of the publication or series of publications required, with some projects taking many years to complete to full satisfaction.
Lorna’s work includes drawing up a detailed acceptable and approved costing of all aspects involved, close liaison with the client’s author, overseeing the editing of copy,arranging required photographic references including the photographing and technical manipulation of images to exacting perfect colour representa- tion, the design and presentation of the text, the pictorial and references and finally the printing, delivery and distribution of the publication to both client and research facilities world-wide, including museums, universities and all notable academics in the field of Asian studies.
publisher & designer for private collectors And museums in the field
of Asian art studies. for ACADEMIC research
Ipek,The Crescent & the Rose: Imperial Ottoman Silks and Velvets
by Julian Raby, Alison Effeny (Author) Published by Azimuth Editions/Lorna Raby
pieces, and began to pay record prices at auction. At the time, he claimed he was buying for the Nour Foundation - but nobody knew what it was or who owned it.
The scale of his purchases amazed the trade with two dealers estimating his out- lay well in excess of £200 million with a insurance valuation of one billion pounds.