The Keir Collection Gallery presents a selection of masterworks from the Keir Collection of Islamic Art, a private collection of Islamic art currently on long-term loan to the Dallas Museum of Art. The gallery is regularly reinstalled with new, special exhibitions of manuscripts, paintings, and textiles.
Starting June 29, see a new exhibition of works from the 18th and 19th centuries, offering a view into artistic practices and production in Iran, India, and the Ottoman Turkish lands in the beginning of the modern era. The selected works show evidence of continuities as well as new inspirations, iconographies, and techniques such as photography. Also newly on view is an immersive analysis of one of the masterpieces in the Keir Collection, a tinted drawing illustrating a story from the anthology The Gulistan (Rose Garden) of Sa‘di by Riza-yi ‘Abbasi, one of Iran’s great 16th-century artists. This episode, “On the advantages of silence”, is a layered, ironic tale that warns against seeking profit from thieves. A large graphic indicates how to read each of the elements of the drawing in relation to the story.
The installation is presented by Kosmos Energy, which is the sponsor of the inaugural years of exhibitions and installations of the Keir Collection of Islamic Art at the Dallas Museum of Art.
Images: Mesopotamia, Iraq, Ewer, late 7th–early 8th century, brass; cast and engraved, The Keir Collection of Islamic Art, The Keir Collection of Islamic Art on loan to the Dallas Museum of Art, K.1.2014.59; Jean-Valentin Morel, Fatimid, Ewer, late 10th–early 11th century, rock crystal, enameled gold, The Keir Collection of Islamic Art on loan to the Dallas Museum of Art, K.1.2014.1.A-B; Iran, Plate, 12th century, fritware, painted in luster on an opaque white glaze, The Keir Collection of Islamic Art on loan to the Dallas Museum of Art, K.1.2014.321; Syria, The "Homberg Ewer,” 1242, brass, silver, The Keir Collection of Islamic Art on loan to the Dallas Museum of Art, K.1.2014.82; Miniature painting - The Robber, the Poet and the Dogs, 1619 drawing, 1654 completed, work on paper, The Keir Collection of Islamic Art on loan to the Dallas Museum of Art, K.1.2014.757