Met shows 16th century rugs in new Islamic gallery
New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art reopened its Islamic art galleries last week after eight years of renovations and updates.
The 19,000-square-foot, 15-gallery suite, titled "New Galleries for the Art of the Arab Lands, Turkey, Iran, Central Asia, and Later South Asia," displays a selection 1,200 works, from a 12,000-piece collection, at any given time. The extensive collection features works from a 13-century span of Islamic civilization across the Middle East, North Africa, Europe, and Central and South Asia.
Displays of textile and paper works will change frequently because of sensitivity to light, the museum said in a release.
Highlights of the Met's collection include classical rugs and carpets from the 16th and 17th centuries. The recently restored Emperor's Carpet is on display. Made in eastern Iran in the mid-16th Century, the famed Emperor's Carpet features a purple-red ground, a dark blue border with touches of yellow, and elaborate floral pattern, scroll, arabesque and animal designs throughout. The classical Persian carpet was presented to Hapsburg Emperor Leopold I by Peter the Great of Russia, hence the piece's name.
To watch the delicate process of prepping the Emperor's Carpet for exhibition, follow this link to the Met's YouTube page.
Other rug highlights from the newly opened exhibition include the Ballard Ottoman prayer rug, dated to the late 16th century. Made of silk, wool and cotton, the rug's ground displays a scene of classical Islamic architecture encased by a slate blue border decorated with floral designs.
To see the Ballard Ottoman prayer rug, follow this link to a story by the Wall Street Journal.
"A profound love of embellishment is often expressed through intricately interlaced, complex geometric forms that are most familiar to us in textiles, woodwork, and tilework," said Sheila Canby, the Patti Cadby Birch curator in charge of the Department of Islamic Art at the Met, in a release.
Artifacts in the new Islamic art exhibit unabatedly present the time-honored majesty of handmade rugs and prove a testament to traditional rug styling and construction techniques. Exhibitions like this one truly highlight the role of hand-knotted and other high-skill, labor-intensive rugs as not just home accents but also as investments.
Mike Torel commented:
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