Author: Metropolitan Museum of Art
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Posts by Metropolitan Museum of Art
Calligraphic Galleon, 1766 AD
Flanked by two other galleons on the horizon, this carefully drawn imperial calligraphic galleon sits on a row of waves containing aphorisms. The imperial galleon with its wind-filled sails is an example of…
Art of the Ottomans (before 1600)
At the time of its foundation in the early fourteenth century, the Osmanli or Ottoman state was one among many small principalities that emerged as a result of the disintegration of the Seljuq sultanate…
The Shah Jehan (Emperor’s) Album
The Shah Jahan Album, also known as the Emperor’s Album or Kevorkian Album, features fifty illustrated and calligraphy folios, forty-one of which belong to the Metropolitan Museum, and nine of which reside in…
Album leaf with a Shii invocation, 17th century
This leaf of fine nastaliq calligraphy was conceived as an artistic endeavor, in which the writing is integrated with the ornamental background. The decorative technique of marbleizing paper spread from Iran to Turkey…
Leaf from a Qur’an manuscript, late 9th–10th century
This page is from a dispersed manuscript, many folios of which once belonged to the scholar R. M. Riefstahl. The angular kufic script is moderated by the roundness of several letters that look…
Textile fragment, late 10th century
Cotton textiles from the eastern Islamic world were often inexpensively decorated with simple painted brushstrokes. The painted surface decoration of these textiles imitates the more luxurious type with embroidered silk inscriptions and also…
Leaf from an Arabic translation of the Materia Medica of Dioscorides
This folio is painted in the lively and appealing style of the Baghdad School: bright colors, sprightly figures in contemporary local dress, and a balanced, bilaterally symmetrical composition. The neutral color of the…
Leaf from Futuh al-Haramain
(Description of the Two Holy Cities of Mecca and Medina) Futuh al-Haramain is an example of a genre of religious writing devoted to the hajj, the Muslim pilgrimage. It serves as a guide to pilgrims…
8th Century Woven Tapestry
This fragment of tapestry-woven cloth demonstrates the dependence of early Islamic art on traditions that predate the advent of Islam in the Middle East. Here, the influence comes from Sasanian art in Iran….
Prayer in the Mosque
Date: 1871 Medium:Oil on canvas Dimensions:35 x 29 1/2 in. (88.9 x 74.9 cm) Credit Line:Catharine Lorillard Wolfe Collection, Bequest of Catharine Lorillard Wolfe, 1887 Orientalist images represent more than two-thirds of Gérôme’s…
Leaf from the Shahnama (Book of Kings)
The legendary death of the Sasanian king Yazdegerd I—who was said to have been kicked by a horse that magically emerged from a spring—is charmingly depicted in this leaf from a dispersed manuscript…
