Qur'ans Exhibition at Freer|Sackler
Date: October 15, 2016 to February 20, 2017
Venue: Freer Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, US
 |
|
A Quran from fghanistan, Herat, during the Safavid period, and created January 1576.
|
From October 15, 2016 until February 20, 2017, the Freer|Sackler will host the first major international loan exhibition on Qur’ans in the United States. It highlights more than fifty of the most important manuscripts from the Museum of Turkish and Islamic Arts (Türk ve Islam Eserleri Müzesi) in Istanbul, Turkey, complemented by twenty works from the Freer|Sackler collections.
Representing Qur’ans from early eighth-century Damascus to late sixteenth-century Herat and Istanbul, the exhibition will trace the evolution from an orally transmitted message to a written text and its transformation into sumptuous volumes by celebrated calligraphers, illuminators, and bookbinders.
The Art of the Qur’an: Treasures from the Museum of Turkish and Islamic Arts will also consider the carefully recorded “biography” of many of the Qur’anic manuscripts.
|
|
Qur’an folio. Near East, Abbasid period, 9th–10th century; Ink, color, and gold on parchment — Charles Lang Freer Endowment; Freer Gallery of Art, F1937.6.1–33
|
Commissioned by some of the most powerful rulers of the Islamic world, the volumes were sought out and cherished by the Ottoman ruling elite as prized possessions and were offered as gifts to public and religious institutions to express personal piety, to secure political power and prestige, and to ensure the continuity of the divine blessings (baraka) which these precious manuscripts were believed to carry.
|
|
Qur’an. Calligrapher: Khalil Allah b. Mahmud Shah; Turkey, Ottoman period, September 1517; Ink, color, and gold on paper; Istanbul, Museum of Turkish and Islamic Arts, TIEM 22
|
In conjunction with the exhibition The Art of the Qur’an: Treasures from the Museum of Turkish and Islamic Arts, the Freer|Sackler will hold an international symposium from December 1 to December 3, 2016. The focus will be on production of luxury Qur’an manuscripts in the Islamic world as well as their usage from the late seventh to the seventeenth century. Speakers will also address issues of patronage and the later lives of these remarkable works of art. The full conference program will be posted on the Freer|Sackler website in September.
Source: Freer| Sackler