This admirable and indispensable book offers a lavishly illustrated comparison of the visual construction of kingship by the rival Armenian dynasties of the Bagratunis and the Artsrunis. It considers the period from 884 when, with the caliph's approval, the Armenian kingship that had been abolished in 428 was revived by Ashot I Bagratuni, to the eleventh century when, under Turkish and Byzantine pressure, the kingdoms of Artsruni Vaspurakan, whose ruler Gagik was proclaimed king by the Arab governor Yusuf in 908, and of Bagratuni Kars and Ani, ended. Jones carefully analyses all the evidence, of different types, surmounting the challenge of its scantiness and patchiness. Ten Bagratuni royal portraits (ch. 3), two from the Bagratunis’ Georgian branch, survive. Representing eight persons they comprise three pairs in sculpted relief from the 960s and 970s, one portrait in a photograph of a lost early-eleventh-century statue, and three in a picture on a mid-eleventh-century single and damaged folio. The only surviving Artsruni visual representations of Artsruni kingship and the ideology associated with it are those produced for Gagik, in the external sculptured relief and interior frescoes of his palatine church of the Holy Cross on the island of Aghtʿamar, built between 915 and 921 (ch. 4). Gagik is the only aristocrat reviewed whose building projects are described in detail in the written sources (ch. 5). Quarrying them Jones teases out the implications of ceremonial (ch. 2). She finds some twenty reasonably detailed contemporary descriptions of episodes such as the investiture or coronation of Armenian princes and kings, by Caliphs, their governors and by heads of the Armenian Church, from 851 to 928, and a few more limited and later accounts of Bagratuni ceremonial 928–1043.

Jones establishes that the Bagratunis avoided Islamic regalia and iconography in portraits of their princes, and foreign regalia in general in those of their kings, characterizing themselves as Armenian and pious. She emphasizes the contrast with Gagik Artsruni, who used Islamic court iconography, stressing his temporal power, as well as underlining his own piety and the pious history of Vaspurakan. Her demonstration that Gagik as a penitent is a recurring theme, and that much of the decoration and design of the Holy Cross implies that Gagik in his kingdom could be likened to Adam in Paradise are important contributions. More could be said about the portrait, above one of Adam, that she interprets as representing Gagik, in an inhabited vine scroll on the east façade of the church, and reproduced, unfortunately in reverse, on the dust jacket (though correctly, matching Jones's description, on p. 59). Jones shows its similarity to a contemporary portrait of the Caliph though comments that the wine here becomes that of the sacrament. Two particularly interesting details go unremarked. The drinking vessel that Gagik holds differs significantly in shape from that of the Caliph. It resembles a chalice. Second (as Jones notes), Gagik reaches for a bunch of grapes. Grapes in a vine scroll have often been used to symbolize Christ and His blood in the Eucharist. This portrait therefore does not simply associate Gagik with Adam, but emphatically states his devotion to Christ, in a sense balancing the depiction on the west façade where he presents his church to Christ.

Jones explains the different representational choices made by the Bagratunis and Gagik Arstruni by stressing that Gagik was simultaneously superior in power and inferior in religious prestige. She points to the fact that since 850 the Artsrunis had furnished Armenian history with two (feigned) apostate princes and one excommunicate whilst the Bagratunis had produced two martyrs. Further, Gagik's earlier, though temporary, alliance with Yusuf against King Smbat Bagratuni, and his being made king himself, had contributed to the latter's martyrdom in 914. Jones's thesis is plausible, but might not be the entirety or even the major part of the explanation for the different artistic representations. It is here that the evidential limitations are the most serious and frustrating. The mid-eleventh-century manuscript Bagratuni royal portraits contrast with the earlier seven in using Islamic courtly iconography and exclusively secular imagery. The reasons for this, and the history of what Jones regards as a secondary rather than an alternative tradition, are entirely unclear. Perhaps some investigation of the audience of the royal imagery would illuminate the differences. The sculpted Bagratuni portraits were located at churches where the spectators were presumably expected to be Christian, perhaps local, numerous and regular visitors. The lost Kars manuscript that contained the last portraits might have been intended for a select group, perhaps in a monastery or perhaps the patron and his family. The church at Aghtʿamar by contrast, being part of Gagik's palace complex, was surely meant to impress various occasional visitors, including Muslims, who came as envoys, as well as Armenian Christians. International motifs and iconography, especially those stressing that Gagik's power and status were backed and recognized by the Caliphate, would have been needed to do this.

The great strength of this book is the art-historical analysis, and it has yet more that is important, most notably a demonstration of Armenian dissociation of possession of relics of the True Cross from Byzantine patronage. The introduction to the historical context (ch. 1) concentrates on a narration of political history. Some ideas about good rulership are dealt with briefly, the subject being picked up again in the investigation of royal building and patronage of churches (ch. 5). But important aspects of the structure of society and its ethos, such as the warrior ethic, bloodfeud and the traditionally non-urban character of aristocratic Armenian society (which strengthens the case that Gagik emulated the ʿAbbāsids, since he is recorded as building cities) are not included.

Scholars and students should welcome this book and will eagerly anticipate the study of the patronage and representation of women in medieval Armenia, Georgia and Caucasian Albania that Jones is planning.