Khalili Collection of Islamic Art

The Nasser D. Khalili Collection of Islamic Art
Folio from an exemplar of Ferdowsi's Shahnameh made for Tahmasp I; Tabriz, Iran, 1520–1550
CuratorsSir Nasser D. Khalili (founder / chair of the editorial board)

Nahla Nassar (curator and registrar)
Mehreen Chida-Razvi (deputy curator and publications)

J. M. Rogers (honorary curator)[1][2]
Size (no. of items)28,000[1]
Websitekhalilicollections.org/islamic-arts/

The Nasser D. Khalili Collection of Islamic Art includes 28,000 objects documenting Islamic art over a period of almost 1400 years, from 700 AD to the end of the twentieth century. It is the largest of the Khalili Collections: eight collections assembled, conserved, published and exhibited by the British scholar, collector and philanthropist Nasser David Khalili, each of which is considered among the most important in its field.[3] Khalili's collection is one of the most comprehensive Islamic art collections in the world[4][5][6] and the largest in private hands.[7][8][9]

In addition to copies of the Quran, and rare and illustrated manuscripts, the collection includes album and miniature paintings, lacquer, ceramics, glass and rock crystal, metalwork, arms and armour, jewellery, carpets and textiles, over 15,000 coins, and architectural elements. The collection includes folios from manuscripts with Persian miniatures, including the Great Mongol Shahnameh, the Shahnameh of Shah Tahmasp, and the oldest manuscript of world history the Jamiʿ al-tawarikh. Among its collections of arms and armour is a 13th-century gold saddle from the time of Genghis Khan.

The ceramic collection, numbering around 2,000 items, has been described as particularly strong in blue and white pottery of the Timurid era and also pottery of pre-Mongol Bamiyan. The jewellery collection includes more than 600 rings. Around 200 objects relate to medieval Islamic science and medicine, including astronomical instruments for orienting towards Mecca, tools, scales, weights, and "magic bowls" intended for medical use. Among the scientific instruments are a celestial globe made in 1285–6 and a 17th-century astrolabe commissioned by the Mughal emperor Shah Jahan.

Exhibitions drawing exclusively from the collection have been held at the Art Gallery of New South Wales in Sydney, the Institut du Monde Arabe in Paris and the Nieuwe Kerk in Amsterdam as well as at many other museums and institutions worldwide.[10] An exhibition at the Emirates Palace in Abu Dhabi in 2008 was, at the time, the largest exhibition of Islamic art ever held.[8]

The Wall Street Journal has described it as the greatest collection of Islamic Art in existence.[4] According to Edward Gibbs, Chairman of Middle East and India at Sotheby's, it is the best such collection in private hands.[5]

  1. ^ a b "The Khalili Collections | Islamic Art". Khalili Collections. Retrieved 21 January 2021.
  2. ^ "Our Team". Khalili Collections. Retrieved 23 April 2021.
  3. ^ "The Khalili Collections major contributor to "Longing for Mecca" exhibition at the Tropenmuseum in Amsterdam". UNESCO. 16 April 2019. Archived from the original on 7 April 2022. Retrieved 25 June 2020.
  4. ^ a b McKie, Andrew (27 January 2012). "The British Museum's Pilgrimage". The Wall Street Journal. ISSN 0099-9660. Retrieved 10 September 2019.
  5. ^ a b Green, William (30 March 2010). "Iranian Student With $750 Turns Billionaire Made by Islamic Art". Bloomberg. Retrieved 10 September 2019.
  6. ^ Shah, Tahir (1994). "The Khalili Collection of Islamic Art". Saudi Aramco World. 45 (6).
  7. ^ Gayford, Martin (16 April 2004). "Healing the world with art". The Independent. Retrieved 10 September 2019.
  8. ^ a b Moore, Susan (12 May 2012). "A leap of faith". Financial Times. Retrieved 10 September 2019.
  9. ^ "BBC World Service – Arts & Culture – Khalili Collection: Picture gallery". BBC. 14 December 2010. Retrieved 30 September 2019.
  10. ^ "The Eight Collections". nasserdkhalili.com. Retrieved 13 June 2024.