From discreet markings on early Qur’an folios to dazzling illustrations and illuminated designs in literary and historical texts, color has served as a defining feature in the art of Iranian books. Focusing on the 15th and 16th centuries, this presentation by Massumeh Farhad, curator of Persian, Arab, and Turkish art at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Asian Art, examines the careful preparation and application of pigments as well as their role and function within the context of Persian manuscripts.

Complements the exhibition Drawing on Blue on view from January 30–April 28, 2024.

SPEAKER
Massumeh Farhad is the Ebrahimi Family Curator of Persian, Arab, and Turkish Art and the senior associate director for research at the Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Asian Art. She is a specialist in the arts of the book from 16th and 17th-century Iran and has curated numerous exhibitions. These have included Art of the Persian Courts (1996), Falnama: The Book of Omens (2009-10), and The Art of the Qur’an: Treasures from the Museum of Turkish and Islamic Arts (2016). Her publications include Slaves of the Shah: New Elites in Safavid Iran (2004), Falnama: The Book of Omens (2009), The Art of the Qur’an: Treasures from the Museum of Turkish and Islamic Arts (2016), and A Collector’s Passion: Ezzat-Malek Soudavar and Persian Lacquer (2017).

Free | Advance ticket required

Listing from our museum partner: Getty Museum Drawings Department