Tim Stanley has been Senior Curator for the Middle Eastern collections at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London since 2002. He was previously Deputy Curator of the Khalili Collection in London. He first visited the Middle East in 1972 while at school and he subsequently studied Turkish and Persian at Manchester and Istanbul Universities and researched Ottoman customary law at Oxford. An interest in illuminated Ottoman documents led him to study calligraphy and other aspects of Islamic art.

Since joining the Museum, he has curated the touring exhibition Palace and Mosque (2004–6), and led the redevelopment of the principal gallery on the Islamic Middle East, now the Jameel Gallery of Islamic Art (2006). He is also the lead curator for Asian ceramics in the new Ceramics Galleries (phase I, September 2009; phase II, summer 2010).

Tim’s publications have been principally on Islamic manuscripts, calligraphy and decorative arts, including Iranian lacquer, and Ottoman history and culture.