Treasury of the World. Jewelled Arts of India in the Age of the Mughals
7 August 2009 - 29 November 2009
The Concert Hall of the Winter Palace

7 August 2009 the Hermitage opens the Treasures of the World. Jewellery of India under the Grand Mughals exhibition. The exhibition from the National Museum of Kuwait presents more than four hundred pieces of jewellery of the Grand Mughals epoch coming from the private collection of He Shaikh Nasser Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah, the Minister of Amiri Divan Affairs of Kuwait, and his spouse Shaikha Hussah Sabah Al-Salim Al-Sabah. This remarkable collection has been gathered rather recently, within the last forty years. It became the result of the profound infatuation of this couple for the art of the past, especially Islamic arts.

The exhibition will give an opportunity to get acquainted with the amazing and at times unique monuments of jewellery. These are bracelets, necklaces, pendants, finger rings, caskets, earrings, specimens of weapons: daggers, swords, knives. These items rich in ornaments with diamonds, emeralds and rubies demonstrate striking perfection and fine workmanship and strike with incredible variety of jewellery techniques and methods that were used by the Indian jewellers of that time.

For the first time the treasures of the National Museum of Kuwait were presented in Russia at the exhibition taking place in the museums of the Moscow Kremlin. The exhibition in the Hermitage is much more extensive in its composition and many-sided in content: over one hundred items dating to the earlier times and originating from different regions situated between Iran and India were added to it. This allows a broader presentation of the connections of the Indian masters of the Mughals's time with the outside Islamic world, a visual understanding of different specific moments of stone working.

The State Hermitage has a long history of cooperation with the National Museum of Kuwait: as far back as in 1990 the exchange exhibitions of Islamic art took place in Leningrad and Kuwait, which was the first museum event of the kind in the Middle East.

The year 2009 is announced to be the year of India in Russia, and in this frame the arrival of such a large number of the first-class monuments of Indian art at the banks of the Neva river sounds more timely. Thereby, the upcoming exhibition in the Hermitage is going to be an exceptional event in the cultural life of St. Petersburg.