Our museums and galleries house fascinating collections, from living bugs to The Beatles, fine art to photography, the Titanic to ancient Egypt.

Follow us online: Facebook Twitter Flickr

National Museums Liverpool Blog - Collections from the Islamic World

 Wednesday, April 30, 2008

Collections from the Islamic World


Wednesday 30 April 08

Over the past six months staff and volunteers in the Ethnology department have been unpacking, re-storing, documenting and photographing NML's little known Islamic collection.

This fascinating collection ranges from 12th century painted dishes from Iran, to 15th centruy pottery sherds from Fostat, an important trading centre in Egypt, to modern day tourist souvenirs. To whet your appetite here's an image of a wonderful dish from 12th - 13th century Iran showing a huntsman riding his sturdy horse.

A deep dish painted with a royal blue background and intermitant red spots. In the centre of the dish is a man, in his right hand he holds a spear and appears as if ready to lunge at an out of view animal. He rides a sturdy black horse, which is in profile. The horse wears a red bridle which completes the man's beautiful red that is decorated with a repeat pattern of small sprigs of white blossom.12th - 13th century dish from Iran, showing a hunting scene.

Having unpacked the collection it was clear that it needed more attention and research. With the help of the Museum Partnerships department we have secured a grant from the Museums Association's Effective Collections scheme. This grant will pay for an Islamic specialist to come and review the collection and make recomendations as to how we can best use the collection, which might include new displays at NML, loans to other organisations or possibly more research into the collection's history.

I'll keep you posted on how the review goes and what we plan to do next.


Posted by Emma | 30/04/2008 12:21   | Comments [0]

Post a comment

All comments require the approval of the site owner before being displayed.
Name
E-mail

Comment (HTML not allowed)  

Enter the code shown (prevents robots):

Live Comment Preview

By posting your comment you have agreed to the terms and conditions below

Terms & Conditions

National Museums Liverpool welcomes your comments. All comments are moderated and will only be published if they adhere to the following standards. The editors reserve the right not to publish comments which they deem inappropriate:

  1. Our Maritime Archives and Library deals with enquiries relating to all aspects of Liverpool's maritime history including ships, passengers, seafarers, shipping and maritime companies. Their web pages describe the information they hold and how to get in touch, along with useful research guides on popular subjects such as tracing seafaring or emigrant ancestors. Please do not submit requests for this type of information as comments on this blog.
  2. Specific enquiries, as opposed to comments on blog posts, should be submitted using our contact system. Please note that we do not provide valuations.
  3. Posts must be text only and under 1000 characters (including spaces). Html code, links or multimedia are not permitted.
  4. We will aim (but do not guarantee) to publish approved comments within 72 hours although there may be delays over weekends and during public holidays.
  5. Please do not post anything that is libellous, abusive, obscene, prejudiced or unlawful.
  6. Do not contravene any rights to privacy (such as personal contact details), copyright or trademark legislation.
  7. Please do not spam or post commercial promotional information.
  8. By posting you agree that you are wholly responsible for the content that you post. Although the blog comments will be moderated National Museums Liverpool will publish comments in the good faith that they comply with the law.
  9. By posting your comment you agree that it may be reproduced by National Museums Liverpool online or in print without compensation.