The Blue Mosque, the Ardabil Carpet, and the Taj Mahal all date to this important period.
c. 1517 - 1924 C.E.
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The Damascus Room at The Metropolitan Museum of Art
The luxurious space of the Damascus Room was ikely for an affluent family to host visitors. The opulent décor and poetic inscriptions were designed to make the space feel like a retreat from the bustling commercial center. Explore the masterpiece with Max Hollein, Marina Kellen French Director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.
Mausoleum of Khoja Ahmed Yasawi
In this partly unfinished building, Persian master builders experimented with architectural and structural solutions later used in the construction of Samarkand, the capital of the Timurid Empire.
Looking at Persian painting
Explore the rich effects of a painting from an illustrated manuscript of the Shahnameh — or ‘Book of Kings’ — the national epic of Iran composed by poet Firdawsi around 1010.
Wine bearers in landscape, a Safavid textile
Safavid nobles wrapped themselves in poetries of love, wine, and youth
Riza-yi ‘Abbasi, portrait of a young page reading
The anonymous figure depicted in this painting embodies the fashion of Isfahan, Iran’s capital city under the rule of Shah 'Abbas I
Mir Afzal of Tun, a reclining woman and her lapdog
The single page format of this painting shows the trend among seventeenth-century art patrons to collect particularly fine examples of drawing, painting or calligraphy on single pages
Riza-yi ʿAbbasi, Seated calligrapher
Riza-yi ʿAbbasi is famous for his drawings of individual or paired figures on single pages
Portrait of Shah ‘Abbas I of Iran
Likenesses of rulers and dignitaries played a significant role in diplomacy.
The Safavids, an introduction
Brilliantly painted manuscripts. Exquisitely detailed miniatures. Fine silks. Complex, ornate palaces. The art of the Safavids is simply magnificent.
The Court of Gayumars
Producing this lush miniature involved many Persian artists—and likely some familiarity with Chinese sources.
Arts of the Islamic world: The later period
The Islamic world extended from Spain to Indonesia, where Ottomans, Timurids, Safavids, and Mughals ruled.
Hagia Sophia as a mosque
After the Ottomans conquered Constantinople, the sultan repurposed this church, adding slender “pencil” minarets.
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