A huge congratulations to Xinyu Liang, HART PhD candidate, for being awarded the competitive 2025-26 Andrew W. Mellon Fellowship at The Met!
Xinyu’s proposed topic of research as a fellow, “Glittering Legacies: Art with Exquisite Goldwork Following Ghazan Khan’s Gold Reforms in Post-Ilkhanid Mongol Era,” examines how Ghazan Khan’s gold reforms impacted artistic production, highlighting the broader socio-political and transcultural dynamics in the use of gold. Xinyu will analyze key art objects from the late thirteenth to early fourteenth centuries in the Met’s collection, including manuscripts with gold leaf, metalwork inlaid with gold and silver, and textiles with gold thread. By exploring the sources, circulation, and refining techniques of gold, alongside the migration of goldsmiths, she will connect these processes with artistic aesthetics and the implementation of Ghazan Khan’s monetary reforms. The aim of this project is to nuance the understanding of the role of gold in Islamic art, linking it to the socio-economic dynamics of Ilkhanid Iran and its broader global context.
As a Met fellow from Sept. 2025 - Aug. 2026, Xinyu will be able to participate in weekly events and program including informal conversations, gallery talks, and behind-the scenes visits with curators and conservators. In May 2026, she will present her work-in-progress as part of the Met’s annual research-sharing program “Research Out Loud: Met Fellows Present.”
Studying under her advisor Prof. Farshid Emami, Xinyu’s dissertation, tentatively titled “Framing the Time-Space: Jami al-Tawarikh as an Interpretational Device and the Book Art under Ilkanid Mongol,” centers on image-making, text-image relationships, and the materiality of book art within a transcultural context, drawing upon the Jami al-Tawarikh.
She was previously awarded the Camfield Graduate Fellowship at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston in 2022-23 and received her master's degree in Chinese art history from the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing.