There are only a few weeks left to visit ‘Beyond the Palace Walls: Islamic Art from The State Hermitage Museum’ taking place at the National Museum of Scotland.

The exhibition showcases the cream of Islamic art from one of the largest and most renowned collections in the world to coincide with the 2006 Festival of Muslim Cultures in the UK.   

From the Winter Palace in St Petersburg are around 200 works of art from as far afield as Egypt and China, dating from the eighth to the nineteenth centuries including textiles, embroideries, glass, metalwork and jewels, and the captivating stories behind them. Many of these artefacts have never been seen outside Russia.

The exhibition is laid out in five sections.  The first, Five Pillars of Islam, illustrates the five basic tenets of Islam – Profession of Faith, Prayer, Alms, Fasting and Pilgrimage. 

The second section, Early Islamic Art, highlights art from countries as far apart as Egypt and Iran to give a flavour of the diversity of material culture throughout Islamic lands between the eighth and thirteenth centuries.

Beyond the Palace Walls, the third section, recalls a royal palace shielding the treasures within and highlights some extraordinary results of artistic and creative interaction between Islamic art and both western and eastern arts.

Among the objects in this area is a blue and white ceramic plate decorated with lotus flowers.  From the sixteenth century onwards Persian ceramicists were strongly influenced by Chinese blue-and-white wares coming in from Ming China. Many copied the Chinese prototypes extremely closely so that at first sight the object does not seem at all like a piece made within the context of the Muslim world.

The main section of the exhibition, The Tulip and the Lotus, concentrates on the golden age of Islamic art between the fourteenth and nineteenth centuries, showing an array of decorative art objects, textiles and costumes. Central to this area is an eighteenth century campaign tent that would have been used by the most senior officers of the Ottoman Empire. Its interiors are richly decorated with jewel-coloured embroidery and gold ribbon lattice windows.

The fifth section, Diplomacy, Warfare and Trade – The Muslim World and Russia, explores the artistic synthesis of east and west within the arts of Islam that happened through the constant exchange of objects between the Muslim world and countries to the east and west.

The exhibition Beyond the Palace Walls: Islamic Art from The State Hermitage Museum is on at the National Museum of Scotland, Chambers Street, Edinburgh from 14 July to 5 November 2006.  Admission price adult £6 (£5 conc), children 5 to 15 years old £4, family ticket £16.  Opening hours daily 10am to 5pm.  The exhibition is accompanied by the illustrated publication Beyond the Palace Walls: Islamic Art from The State Hermitage Museum. 

Print Discuss