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ARDABIL CARPET ON EXHIBIT AT
NEW SHOW AT LOS ANGELES
COUNTY MUSEUM OF ART
The Ardabil carpet, dated 1539-40 is one of two of the most treasured carpets of the Safavid dynasty. Owned by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, it was a gift to the museum from J. Paul Getty. The second Ardabil carpet is on permanent exhibit at The Victoria and Albert Museum in London.
LOS ANGELES --The Ardabil Carpet, one of the pair of the most treasured carpets in the world, will be on exhibit at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) NOW through Sept. 5, 2011.
The Ardabil Carpet, a gift to the museum by J. Paul Getty, is the centerpiece of the LACMA exhibit Gifts of the Sultan: The Arts of Giving at the Islamic Courts.
The major international traveling exhibition explores Islamic art through the universal tradition of gift giving.
The Ardabil Carpet is one of the historically significant examples of Islamic art which have been brought together for the purpose of this exhibition. The show demonstrates the integral and complex nature of gift exchange in the Islamic world.
Organized by LACMA with support from the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (MFAH), Gifts of the Sultan spans the eighth through nineteenth centuries and features more than 250 works of art representing a variety of media from collections in America, Europe and the Middle East.
Following its presentation at LACMA, the show travels to the Houston Museum of Fine Arts October 23, 2011 to January 15, 2012 and the Museum of Islamic Art in Doha, Qatar in the Spring of 2012.
“We hope that Gifts of the Sultan will introduce new audiences to Islamic art by focusing on a practice shared by all cultures—gift exchange,†said Linda Komaroff, exhibition curator and LACMA curator of Islamic Art and department head of Art of the Middle East.
“We all share a sense of delight in receiving gifts, and the many sumptuous objects presented in this exhibition will allow visitors to imagine themselves as the fortunate recipients.â€
The Ardabil Carpet
Approximately fifteen objects from LACMA’s permanent collection will be on view in the exhibition, such as the famed and rarely exhibited Ardabil Carpet (1539-40), which was a royal gift to the Safavid shrine at Ardabil, in northwestern Iran. (It was last on exhibit from November 14, 2009 to January 18, 2010)
The Ardabil (or Ardebil) Carpet is the term used for both the better-known Victoria & Albert-owned piece and the LACMA rug.
The foundation is of silk with a wool pile. Knot density of the V&A Ardebil is 300-350 knots per square inch and the knot density of the LA piece is slightly higher.
The size of the London carpet is 34½ feet by 17½ feet. The LA Ardabil is 23'11" x 13'5"
Both carpets have an inscription: a couplet from a ghazai by Persian mystic poet Hafez and a signature.
Completed during the rule of the Safavid Shah Tahmasp I in the mid-16th century, probably in the city of Tabriz, the carpets are considered some of the best of the classical Persian school of carpet creation.
They were first placed in a mosque in Ardabil, but they had become heavily worn and were sold in 1890
to a British carpet broker who restored one of the carpets using the other carpet for the restoration work. He then resold the restored piece to the Victoria & Albert Museum. William Morris, then employed by the V&A, was instrumental in the acquisition.
The second "secret" carpet, which had been used to restore the larger piece, was sold to American businessman Clarence Mackay and was then bought and sold by wealthy collectors for several decades. It was first exhibited to the public and shown in a London exhibition in 1931.
American industrialist J. Paul Getty purchased it from Lord Duveen several years later. Getty paid $70,000 for the piece. While it is not known what the present worth of the carpet is, Getty was approached by agents on behalf of King Farouk of Egypt who offered $250,000 so that it could be given as a wedding gift. Getty later donated it to the Museum of Science, History & Art in Los Angeles, which later became the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.
Exhibition Overview
Gift giving was a fundamental activity at the great Islamic courts for various purposes: to further diplomatic and political ambitions; as reward for services rendered; to celebrate annual events like the New Year or more personal occasions such as weddings and birthdays; and as expressions of piety, often associated with the construction or enhancement of religious monuments.
Made of rare and precious materials and commissioned from the best artists and craftsmen of the day, these gifts came in many forms.
Gifts of the Sultan brings together an array of diverse works including silk carpets and textiles woven with golden thread; jewelry and objects fashioned of precious metal; containers fashioned of jade, ivory, or rock crystal; elaborately illustrated manuscripts and richly illuminated Qur’ans; enameled and gilded glass; carved and inlaid wooden furnishings; and jewel-encrusted arms and armor.
Gifts of the Sultan will show that many works were not straightforward gifts; rather their gift status is only revealed by unraveling their life stories, which tell how they were viewed or received, which was very often beyond the context of their original creation.
The exhibition will also demonstrate the cross-cultural interactions that took place between Islam and Byzantium, and with western European and East Asian courts, as the exchange of luxury objects illustrates a central process by which artistic forms and ideas were circulated, emulated, and assimilated.
Exhibition Organization
Gifts of the Sultan is organized in three broad sections: personal gifts, pious donations, and state and diplomatic gifts. The first includes more intimate items such as objects of personal adornment in the form of jewelry, belts, and garments; precious yet utilitarian pieces such as vessels of gold, silver, porcelain, and jade; along with paintings, albums, and manuscripts.
The second section highlights pious donations, encompassing architectural elements, furnishings, and manuscripts of the Qur’an that were part of a religious institution’s endowment, the endowment deed itself, and works, often of a secular nature, that were specifically gifted to a mosque or shrine.
The third and largest section features works that were made for or kept in royal treasuries, representing a broad array of types and materials ranging from rock crystal pieces and courtly regalia to places of habitation such as a palace façade or a tent.
The exhibition also includes a small contemporary component presenting the work of Sadegh Tirafkan, Shahzia Sikander, and Ahmed Mater. These three artists, who have roots in the Islamic world and draw inspiration from their own cultural traditions, have been commissioned to produce new work interpreting the theme of Gifts of the Sultan.
Other Exhibition Highlights
Other key works of art drawn from international collections that will be on display include two spectacular pairs of gold bracelets from eleventh-century Syria that were perhaps dowry gifts; pages from a beautiful Mughal album, given by an Indian prince to his beloved wife; a group of enormous gold-embroidered textiles sent by Ottoman sultans to embellish the Ka`ba, in Mecca; and a fourteenth-century enameled and gilded glass mosque lamp, which was made for one of Cairo’s religious complexes but was subsequently gifted by the Khedive of Egypt to King Leopold of Belgium for the inauguration of the Suez Canal in 1869.
Sumptuous rugs and textiles are part of the
Los Angeles show.
The pious donations section features architectural details, manuscripts and furnishings.
Catalogue
The exhibition catalogue, published by LACMA and Yale University Press, represents the collective scholarship of an international team of contributors, led by exhibition curator Linda Komaroff. The elaborately illustrated book examines the complex interplay between artistic production and gift-based patronage.
This exhibition was organized by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, with support from the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. It was made possibleby the National Endowment for the Humanities and Camilla Chandler Frost. It was supported in part by the E. Rhodes and Leona B. Carpenter Foundation and by an indemnity from the Federal Council on the Arts and the Humanities.
The Los Angeles presentation was made possible in part by LACMA’s Wallis Annenberg Director’s Endowment Fund.The publication was made possible by The Hagop Kevorkian Fund. Additional support was provided by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
About LACMA
Since its inception in 1965, LACMA has been devoted to collecting works of art that span both history and geography and represent Los Angeles's uniquely diverse population. Today, the museum features particularly strong collections of Asian, Latin American, European, and American art, as well as a contemporary museum on its campus. With this expanded space for contemporary art, innovative collaborations with artists, and an ongoing Transformation project, LACMA is creating a truly modern lens through which to view its rich encyclopedic collection.
LACMA is located at 5905 Wilshire Blvd (at Fairfax Ave), Los Angeles, CA, 90036. www.lacma.org
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