Opening of the permanent display of The Art of Iran

The first room of the new display (Hall 391) is devoted to Sasanian art. The period under the Sasanid dynasty (3rd – mid-7th century AD) was the final stage in the ancient history of Iran. The Sasanids proclaimed themselves spiritual heirs to the mighty Achaemenid dynasty of Iran. They were famed for the luxury and carefully planned ceremonial of their court. Their policies were marked by a striving after the maximum centralization of power and an expansion of their domains. The official religion of the Sasanids was Zoroastrianism, a faith that arose in Central Asia in the 1st millennium BC and gets its name from that of the prophet Zarathustra (whom Greco-Roman authors called Zoroaster).

The Hermitage possesses the world’s largest collection of silver articles from the Sasanian era. They were discovered on Russian soil, mainly in the basin of the River Kama, areas adjoining the Urals and in the north of that range. Sasanian vessels have also been found in the Caucasus and on the territory of present-day Ukraine. All the items were chance finds, most often discovered by local people during agricultural or building work in the 18th – early 20th centuries. The majority of the pieces were parts of hoards containing Sasanian and Byzantine silverware, jewellery and coins. It is customarily believed that during the Middle Ages, merchants brought silverware to the Kama basin, where they exchanged it for furs and other local products. Most probably, due to the figurative scenes used to decorate them, some of these objects were kept in sanctuaries and used in the religious practices of the natives.

In the 7th century, Iran underwent the Arab conquest and became part of a new empire – the Arab Caliphate, which led to the gradual Islamification of the Iranian-speaking regions and the adaptation of the Arabic alphabet to write the Persian language. Gradually the central authority of the Caliphate began to weaken, and power passed to local dynasties that formally acknowledge the Caliph as overlord. The first flourishing of Iranian culture after the Arab conquest, often referred to as the Persian Renaissance, is associated with the extensive region of Khorasan that comprised the north-eastern part of today’s Iran together with what are now Turkmenistan and Afghanistan. Its major cities – Balkh, Marv, Nishapur, Tus and Herat – became important centres of poetry, learning and various crafts. The era produced many remarkable poets, the most outstanding of which was Abul-Qâsem Ferdowsi (935–1020), the author of the immortal Iranian epic Shāh-nāmeh.

Various regions of Iran continued to produce sumptuous tableware for feasts that had already been popular in pre-Islamic times. In the 12th century, Khorasan craftsmen began making brass articles abundantly decorated with silver and copper inlay work (Hall 392). The display presents the Hermitage collection of Iranian metalwork items from that period, which is the most comprehensive in the world. Its masterpieces include some famous inlaid works: an aquamanile in the form of a zebu cow from 1206 and the Herat Kettle from 1163.

In this period ceramic-making reached its peak, with the main centre becoming the city of Kashan, where the craftsmen made extensive use of lustre glaze – made with salts of silver and copper – in the decoration of their works, giving them a metallic sheen. The second half of the 12th century saw the appearance of ceramics painted with exquisite overglaze enamels. The new display includes such classic works of this type as the Basilevsky Vase, as well as a ceramic tombstone from a mausoleum in the city of Varamin (Hall 392).

The Hermitage display of The Art of Iran also includes (in Halls 393–397) works from later eras in Iranian history under the Timurid (1370–1507), Safavid (1501–1722) and Qajar (1789–1925) dynasties. An important place is taken by Persian painting of the 15th – early 20th centuries: miniatures, easel paintings and also items with painted lacquer decoration. The museum’s collection of Safavid-era ceramics and artistic metalwork is the most significant in the world, and so the display presents such pieces in all their diversity. Besides that, there are carpets on show in the halls that were made by Iranian craftspeople in the 17th–19th centuries.

The new display has been prepared by members of the staff of the State Hermitage’s Department of the East, the keepers of the collections of Iranian artworks Darya Olegovna Vasilyeva and Anton Dmitryevich Pritula, Adel Tigranovna Adamova, Mikhail Sergeyevich Grachev, Maria Magomedovna Dandamayeva, Anna Vladimirovna Moiseyeva, Alexander Borisovich Nikitin and Dmitry Vladimirovich Sadofeyev, under the direction of the head of the department, Natalia Viktorovna Kozlova.

The permanent display of The Art of Iran completes one of the most substantial projects of recent years – the major re-exposition of the State Hermitage’s Department of the East on the top floor of the Winter Palace. This gallery, which begins with the halls of art from the Byzantine Empire and the Islamic Middle East, provides the opportunity to take a unique journey through the Byzantine Empire, the Arab Caliphate, the Ottoman Empire and, now, the newly opened Iranian halls.

The exhibition can be visited as part of either fixed route No 1 (entry by the Jordan Staircase) or fixed route No 2 (entry by the Church Staircase) around the Main Museum Complex.