I’ve always wanted to know exactly when (and how) the famous star tiles were taken off the Khargird madreseh. You can see some of the tiles in London (in the V&A and also in the British Museum); in the Met in New York; and in the David Museum in Copenhagen. If you have (lots of) …
The 1910 Munich exhibition is renowned for its innovative ‘white wall’ display of Islamic objects, elevating individual pieces from an element within the faux-oriental ‘fairytale’ set-pieces of earlier exhibitions to works of art displayed in a gallery. At the time, though, perhaps this wasn’t so clear. EM Troelenberg suggests that: “[t]he best way to proceed …
I was asked last week about the tomb of Khajeh Rabeh in Mashhad – and had to confess that I’ve never visited it. But my curiosity was piqued – so I did an internet search . . and found that the internal decoration of the octagonal building is simply stunning. Dont miss out on a series …
Last week, the blog focused on the story of Bizhan and Manizheh and how it is represented on the Freer beaker. This week, a little more from Dr Marianna Shreve Simpson’s fascinating Khalili Lecture. After saying that she thought that a mina’i (overglaze enamel ceramic) fragment in the Khalili collection also showed scenes from the …
This week’s Khalili Memorial lecture was entitled ‘The Cosmic Cup in Medieval and Later Persian Art’. Since there’s not enough space in one posting to go through everything that Dr Marianna Shreve Simpson talked about, this week’s blog will concentrate especially on the Shahnameh story of Bizhan and Manizheh (here in verse, here in prose), …
It’s all very exciting: the Met galleries (in New York) for ‘Art of the Arab Lands, Turkey, Iran, Central Asia, and Later South Asia’ (or ALTICASA for short, gulp!) are re-opening from 24 Oct. There are 15 galleries, and 1200 objects on show at any one time – so I’m not going through everything here! …
This week, the winners of the 2011 Jameel Prize were announced. The Prize is for contemporary art or design inspired by traditions of Islamic craft and design, and this year’s official winner is Rachid Koraïchi, for his embroidered cloth banners. The People’s Choice winner is Aisha Khalid, who showed the wonderful ‘Kashmiri Shawl’ (a cashmere …
Ice was a historical commonplace in Persia: Fryer wrote of how in 1677 the Persians “mightily covet cool things to the Palat. Wherefore they mix snow, or dissolve ice in their Water, Wine or Sherbets,”. Even the poorest, “have they but a Penny in the World, the one half will go for Bread, and dried …
The Islamic Ceramics display in the Ashmolean Museum includes a fascinating feature on fakery. The first fake dish included here is boat-shaped – or seems that way. Actually it’s made up, according to the Ashmolean, from pieces of a round bowl. It’s maybe more difficult to see the fakery in the second dish. It purports …
Robert Shirley, portrait before 1628. Wiki image Last week I included van Dyck’s painting of Robert Shirley dressed à la Persane. This week, when I was reading the (relatively new, go read it!) Carpets and Textiles in the Iranian World 1400-1700, I was reminded of another image of him. This is the one that was …