“The exhibition illustrates contrasting, but complementary, themes in Islamic art, and especially the arts of Islamic Iranian cultures, which might be characterised as, respectively, secular and religious. And it gives deliberately, a prominent place to the court arts of Islam in the 18th and 19th centuries, which have so often been regarded as a period of Westernisation and decline, but which assimilated and adapted foreign motifs and techniques no less successfully and with no less significance than in earlier centuries.
“As always, it has been a pleasure to work together, bringing the strengths of our two institutions to bear on this important exhibition.”
Professor M. B. Piotrovsky, Director, The State Hermitage Museum
