US to exhibit Safavid gifts to Russia
Fri Apr 10, 2009 3:39PM
Safavid rug
The
Arthur M. Sackler Gallery is slated to hold an exhibition of gifts
offered by Ottomans and Safavids to the tsars of imperial Russia.
The Tsars and the East: Gifts from Turkey and Iran in The Moscow Kremlin will display some 65 gifts and tributes presented to tsars by Turkish and Iranian embassies, diplomatic missions, and trade delegations between the 16th and 17th centuries.
Iranian fabrics, arms and armor will form a major part of the exhibition, which will be held from May 9 to September 13, 2009 in Washington, D.C.
Visitors will be able to see lavish gifts such as rare arms and armor, jeweled ceremonial vessels and regalia intended for the Russian court or the Orthodox Church, stirrups with pearls, golden bridles with turquoises and rubies, and saddles covered with velvet and silk.
A gold-inlaid early 16th-century Iranian shield, acquired by Tsar Mikhail Fedorovich in 1622 upon the death of Prince Fedor Ivanovich Mistislavsky, is one of the many exquisite items to be displayed at the event.
Organized by the Smithsonian Institution's Arthur M. Sackler Gallery in collaboration with The Moscow Kremlin Museums, the event will exhibit some of Kremlin's finest artworks for the first time in the US.
"These are rare, one-of-a-kind objects, which have been carefully preserved in the Kremlin treasury. Most have not been seen outside Russia until now," asia.si.edu quoted chief curator and curator of Islamic art at the Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, Massumeh Farhad as saying.
Ottoman and Safavid diplomats and merchants also offered lavish gifts in the hopes of currying favor with the tsar.
"Merchants played an important role in the diplomatic embassies of the period, much like today's ambassadors," said Farhad.
"They understood that a gift to the tsar was intended not only to impress and flatter, but to aid in negotiating a good deal between trading partners."
