Exhibition Dates:
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October 29, 2018–March 24, 2019 |
| Exhibition Location: |
The Met Fifth Avenue, Floor 2, The Hagop Kevorkian Fund
Special Exhibition Gallery, Gallery 458 |
Manuscripts from Iran, Ottoman Turkey, and Mughal and Deccani India often feature decorative techniques in the borders and on the surface of their pages. Opening October 29 at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the exhibition Clouds and Gold Dust: Decorated Papers from the Ettinghausen Collection will include some three dozen examples of decorated papers that were enhanced with marbling (called abri or ebru in Persian and Turkish, respectively, meaning “cloud”), dusting (with silver and gold flecks), stenciling, and decoupage, either alone, in combination, or with illumination. The exhibition traces the development of these techniques from Central Asia across Iran and into Turkey. Many of the folios contain poetic verses in the elegant nastaʿliq script favored by scribes in Iran and India. Ranging in date from the late 15th to the 20th century, the works on view were collected by Richard and Elizabeth Ettinghausen.
The exhibition is made possible by The Hagop Kevorkian Fund.
Richard Ettinghausen (1906–1979) was the Consultative Chairman of the Department of Islamic Art at The Met from 1969 to 1979. He was the author of foundational studies on Islamic art, and masterminded the Museum’s pioneering installation of the Islamic galleries that opened in 1975. Elizabeth Sgalitzer Ettinghausen (1918–2016) was an author and lecturer on Byzantine and Islamic art. Together, the Ettinghausens had a profound impact on the field of Islamic art. The works in the exhibition also show them as collectors of important but understudied works. Some of the older pages come from dispersed manuscripts that were available on the art market beginning in the 1920s. The original patrons are rarely known; the embellishments suggest that the manuscripts were made for wealthy clients.
The exhibition was organized by Sheila Canby, the Patti Cadby Birch Curator in Charge of the Department of Islamic Art. Conservation of the manuscripts was performed by Yana Van Dyke, Conservator, Department of Paper Conservation.
The exhibition will be featured on The Met website, as well as on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.
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November 26, 2018
Image: Fragment of an Arabic phrase in tawqi‘ script. Signed by Mahmud, known as Jalal al-Din (active 16th century). Iran or India; calligraphy: early 16th century, marbling: 17th century or later. Black ink on paper with marbled-paper borders mounted to pasteboard. Anonymous loan (TR.324.6.2017)
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