46. Gender, Faith, and Artistic Patronage in Japanese Buddhism and the Ottoman Empire

Women’s contributions to religious art have long been marginalised within art-historical scholarship, particularly in traditions outside Europe and North America. This session addresses that gap by bringing together research on women’s artistic patronage in Buddhist Japan and the Ottoman Empire, with a focus on how faith — and specifically beliefs about the afterlife — functioned as a generative force for artistic and architectural production.

This session engages directly with intersectional approaches to art history, examining how gender, religious identity, and geographical location outside of Europe shaped women’s artistic agency across distinct cultural traditions. Existing scholarship on women’s patronage has tended to focus on European contexts, leaving non-Western traditions — including Japanese Buddhism and Ottoman Islam — comparatively understudied. Landmark works by scholars such as Leslie Peirce on the Ottoman imperial harem and D. Fairchild Ruggles on Islamic women’s patronage have opened important avenues, yet comparative and cross-cultural approaches remain rare. This session builds on and challenges these contributions by foregrounding non-European case studies and encouraging methodological exchange across regional specialisms.

Papers in this session might explore questions such as: How did women transform personal piety into lasting artistic and architectural legacies? In what ways did beliefs about salvation or the afterlife shape the form and content of commissioned works? How do gender and religious authority intersect in the production of sacred art? We particularly welcome papers addressing case studies from Japan, the Ottoman Empire, and other non-Western contexts.

The session will follow a standard format of four twenty-minute papers, each followed by five minutes for questions, with a brief concluding discussion facilitated by the convenor.

Themes: Women’s patronage, Buddhist art, Ottoman art

Additional format comment: The session will follow a standard format of four twenty-minute papers, each followed by five minutes for questions, with a brief concluding discussion facilitated by the convenor.

Lead Convenor: Selin Ozdemir, Tohoku University, Japan

To submit a Paper to this Session, please follow the guidance on our website and complete the AAH 2027 Call for Papers Proposal Submission Form.