The High Museum of Art’s latest exhibition “Bestowing Beauty: Masterpieces from Persian Lands” features nearly 100 different works highlighting the vast artist traditions of Iranian civilization spanning from the sixth to the 19th centuries.
The works come from the Hossein Afshar Collection, one of the world’s largest private collections of Persian art.
Works in the exhibition include carpets, textiles, manuscripts, paintings, ceramics, lacquer, metalwork, scientific instruments, and jeweled objects. Highlights include exquisite miniature paintings from the Shahnama (Book of Kings), the Persian national epic; rare Qur’an pages; and monumental silk carpets from the height of Safavid carpet production. Woven throughout the tales of these extraordinary artworks are experiences, ideas, and emotions shared by all peoples, grouped within the exhibition into the universal themes of faith and piety, love and longing, banquets and battles, kingship and authority, and earth and nature.
Monica Obniski, the High’s curator of decorative arts and design, said of the new exhibition: “We are pleased to present High visitors with stunning works from several centuries of Persian cultural production. This rich artistic tradition demonstrates universal themes of humanity and reminds us that art serves to connect people across cultures.”
The exhibition will run until April 18.