This week, a diminutive motherboard of a Rubaiyat by Omar Khayyam, courtesy of Vanessa Hodkinson. “To a modern reader, the rubáiyát reeks of everything Edward Said couldn’t stand: languor, hedonism, a vaguely academically underwritten Orientalist rambling”. Really, it’s a selection of poems, chosen from over a thousand fragments, dealing with universal themes of life, death, love and religion, …
This week’s entrancing talk on Simin Behbahani by Ahmad Karimi-Hakkak told of Behbahani’s poetic development as she matured from writing leftist ‘sketches’ and ‘vignettes’ of poverty, prostitutes and inequality – to an iconic breathing of new life into the ghazal form Karimi-Hakkak spoke of how Simin Behbahani has “outgrown the war between the old [forms …
I think it’s more likely to be a salt blizzard that’s going to blow off the dessicating remnants of Lake Urmia – year in, year out – even if it was a tsunami that was discussed at this week’s IHF showing of Lady Urmia. We saw how the 9 metre drop in water is converting …
This is one of the better books I’ve read on Iran. But It drove me mad with all: – the lists (actual, and cleverly disguised by stringing them together with commas / semi-colons). It’s great to do research, but maybe he didn’t need to put all of it in? – the whining about cab drivers …
The Clark-Corcoran carpet may be the most expensive Persian carpet ever – but when Rupprecht of Bavaria unexpectedly found some (much less expensive) kilims and carpets in the back rooms of his castle, he decided to instigate the first block-buster exhibition of Islamic art objects. The Munich 1910 exhibition “Masterworks of Muhammadan Art” set the …
Here’s Mary-Jo Otsea selling the Clark- Corcoran carpet in June 2013 at Sothebys in New York for $33.7 million. This carpet is named after Senator William Clark, “the richest man west of the Mississippi” in the 1890s. Apparently no-one attempted to compete with his buying power in his lifetime – though, of course, the American sanctions …
And here’s a video of Mary Jo Otsea, the lead on carpets at Sothebys, selling the most expensive Persian carpet (so far). Look out for her slip at 1 minute 40 seconds: she mixes up $16 million and $16,000 – a much more usual price for her – as she says “Hello! Excuse me, I’m …
This is the most expensive Persian carpet ever purchased at auction: the Clark-Corcoran sickle carpet – sold for $33.7M in Sotheby’s New York Here’s what Sotheby’s said about it. And here’s more details in my blog posting Image credit: artsjournal
Qanats were probably invented in Iranian Kurdistan – or so says this month’s Saudi Aramco magazine. I’m not so sure. And I think it’s a lost opportunity that they don’t mention the water crisis which is threatening the very existence of the qanat, at least in Iran. Click here to read about the dry qanat that …
Look at these two gorgeous art-works, included in the Magic of Persia / Sotheby’s exhibition / sale in Los Angeles! Check out the fine detail on this one below: The Red Love, Alireza Astaneh I saw them (electronically …