These are the proceedings of a special conference held at the Barakat Trust Conference in Islamic art and history held at St John's College, Oxford in 1994, on the politics and artistic patronage of the Il-Khanid court in Iran between about AD 1290 and 1340. The Il-Khanids were of Mongol origin, and the papers range from their contacts with China to the way which they were perceived by their Mamluk rivals in Egypt.