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Exhibitions

Scotland's National Museum to Showcase Islamic Art and Tackle Misconceptions

Strategic Insights

— 1 min read

The National Museum of Scotland is set to host a major summer exhibition, Beyond the Palace Walls, which will display a vast array of Islamic art and artifacts from the State Hermitage Museum in St Petersburg, Russia, considered the finest in the world. The exhibition, featuring around 200 items, aims to showcase the breadth, beauty, and cosmopolitan nature of Islamic culture, challenging the "joyless and monolithic" face often encountered in media representations. Curated by Dr Ulrike al Khamis, the exhibition will highlight the fruitful and positive relationships between Islamic and other cultures, showcasing a seventeenth-century Ottoman tent as its centrepiece.

Key Takeaways:

  • The exhibition, Beyond the Palace Walls, is a comprehensive overview of Islamic culture, featuring around 200 items, including some never seen in western Europe before.
  • The exhibition is divided into five sections: The Five Pillars of Islam, The Tulip and the Lotus, Early Islamic art from Egypt to Iran, Beyond the Palace Walls, and Diplomacy, Warfare and Trade.
  • The State Hermitage Museum in St Petersburg, Russia, has lent some of its finest Islamic art collections to the National Museum of Scotland for this exhibition, marking a significant coup in light of recent concerns over loans of Russian-owned art to European museums.
  • The exhibition aims to challenge misconceptions about Islamic culture, showcasing its beauty, cosmopolitan nature, and fruitful relationships with other cultures.
  • Dr Ulrike al Khamis, curator of the exhibition, has been working closely with Mikhail Piotrovsky, Hermitage director, to select the best items for the exhibition.
  • The exhibition will be on show from July 14 to November 5 at the Royal Museum in Chambers Street, Edinburgh.

Statistics:

  • The exhibition features around 200 items, making it one of the biggest Islamic art exhibitions staged in Britain.
  • The exhibition highlights the cultural exchange and interaction between Islamic art and western or eastern arts.
  • The exhibition includes items from the State Hermitage Museum in St Petersburg, Russia, which is considered to have the finest Islamic art collections in the world.

Sources:

  • The Scotsman, "Islamic art exhibition to be one of biggest staged in Britain"
  • The Times of Scotland, "National Museum of Scotland to host major Islamic art exhibition"
  • "Beyond the Palace Walls", a brochure for the exhibition

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