Lure of the East: Selections from the Christopher Gandy Collection
(from 15th Apr until 27th Jul 2014)Explore highlights from Christopher Gandy’s Islamic paintings and objects collection.
Highly collectible and easy to appreciate for their compositional quality and skilful execution, works on paper were the first objects to attract Christopher Gandy’s attention as a collector. While he followed a general trend by acquiring illustrated pages drawn from classical works of Persian literature - such as Nizami’s Khamsa (Quintet), Firdawsi’s Shahnama (Book of Kings), and Jami’s Haft Awrang (Seven Thrones) - and album pages, Gandy showed equal appreciation of more complex Islamic art forms such as calligraphy, examples of which entered his collection very early on. Be they in the form of loose Qur’anic pages or detached text leaves from elegantly penned literary works, the works are often attributable to accomplished calligraphers.
Khusraw outside Shirin's palace (EA2012.38)
Page from a dispersed manuscript of Jami's Yusuf and Zulaykha (EA2012.56)
Muhammad and Jibril visiting paradise (EA2012.36)
Page from a dispersed manuscript of Mir ‘Ali Shir Nava’i's Ghara’ib al-Sighar (EA2012.53)
Blue poppies (EA2012.44)
Court scene of a prince enthroned, with courtiers and attendants (EA2012.28)
Standing portrait of Sultan Abu'l Hasan of Golconda (EA2012.35)
Prince Bedar Bakht in a landscape (EA2012.33)
A lady smoking a hookah on a terrace by a lake (EA2012.31)
Notice
Objects from past exhibitions may have now returned to our stores or a lender. Click into an individual object record to confirm whether or not an object is currently on display. Our object location data is usually updated on a monthly basis, so please contact the Jameel Study Centre if you are planning to visit the museum to see a particular Eastern Art object.
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