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February 24, 2010
The Genesis of one of the great collections of Islamic arts
I still can't get over how recently two of the great collections of Islamic art were started. The Khalili Collection (based in London) was started in the late 60s or early 70s - and here's the story of the al-Sabah Collection:
In 1975, Sheikh Nasser al-Ahmad al- Sabah, eldest son of the Amir of Kuwait, brought home a 14th- century decorated glass bottle and showed it to his wife, a committed lover of modern abstract art.The beauty of the artifact and its design changed her mind and became the first of more than 30,000 items that now make up one of the world's largest and most valuable collections of Islamic art.
"I realized that everything I loved about modern and contemporary art was in that piece of glass," said Sheika Hussah Sabah al-Salem al-Sabah in Singapore, at the opening of an exhibition of 402 stunning items from the collection illustrating the wealth of India's Mughal empire.
Read more about the exhibition (and a little more about the collection) here.
Posted by CrankyProfessor at February 24, 2010 9:15 AM