CF STUDIES JOURNAL 09 - Flipbook - Page 139
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EXHIBITION REVIEW: Epic Iran, Victoria and Albert Museum, London
EXHIBITION REVIEW: Epic Iran, Victoria and Albert Museum, London
The next section has a starkly different appearance,
narrowing into a row of display cases set into plain grey
walls. This section devoted to the art of the Parthian
and Sasanian periods beautifully showcases examples
of metalwork and glass. Dramatic lighting gleams
against silver and gold, casting shadows that emphasize
the elegant forms of the vessels on display (fig. 3).
On one side of the gallery the Zoroastrian religion is
introduced with several manuscripts and a video from a
documentary about the practice of the faith today.
A small room painted in electric yellow extends from
the Sasanian gallery, featuring illustrations from the
Shahnameh (Book of Kings) (fig. 4). This epic tale tells
the stories of Iran’s great kings and heroes leading up
to the fall of the Sasanian dynasty to Arab invaders.
Placing this gallery here breaks the chronology of the
exhibition, making a 600-year leap from the end of
the Sasanian period to the earliest known illustrated
copies of the Shahnameh. This placement is intended to
frame the Shahnameh as a bridge between Iran’s ancient
Fig. 2 / Gallery 2 (The
Persian Empire), looking
toward gallery 1.
Fig. 3 / Sasanian silver,
gallery 3 (The Last of
the Ancient Empires).
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past and the later Islamic dynasties who visualized and
interpreted their history through this text. From the
early fourteenth century, Iranian rulers commissioned
illustrated copies of the Shahnameh as a means of
legitimizing their own rule and linking themselves
to Iran’s glorious past. Spectacular illustrations are
showcased here, including an enchanting night-time
battle scene from the magnificent Shahnameh of Shah
Tahmasp on loan from the Sarikhani Collection and
the rarely exhibited Windsor Shahnameh from The Royal
Collection.
This transition and the gallery that follows represent
one of the moments of discontinuity in an exhibition
which lacks cohesion in its overall design. Loosely
centred on the adoption and practice of Islam in Iran,
the ‘Islamic’ gallery opens with a leaf from one of the
earliest known manuscripts of the Qur’an produced
in the Arabian Peninsula. The diversity of works here
presents an opportunity for a multifaceted discussion
of the practice of Islam in Iran, including an image of
