A Glimpse of Paradise: Gold in Islamic Art
October 9, 2010 - April 2011
A Glimpse of Paradise explores the unique status of gold in Islam through a small group of objects drawn from the Museum’s collection. The diverse selection includes a fourteenth-century Qur’an folio from Central Asia or Turkey with gold decoration added in India, and a resplendent eagle-shaped pendant made in Iran during the nineteenth century. As these works show, gold has been put to multiple uses in the arts of Islam, serving both as a sign of the divine and as an ornament for earthly pleasure."
Sultan 'Ali 'Adil Shah II, c. 1670
Indian
Opaque watercolor and gold on paper
Image: 10 × 5 9/16 inches (25.4 × 14.1 cm) Sheet: 10 3/8 × 6 1/8 inches (26.4 × 15.6 cm)
125th Anniversary Acquisition. Alvin O. Bellak Collection, 2004
2004-149-38
Label:
During the reign of Sultan 'Ali 'Adil Shah II of Bijapur (reigned 1656-72), ruler of one of the five Islamic kingdoms of the Deccan, the threat of Mughal military domination increased. In painting, however, the Deccani preference for fanciful, decorative compositions reasserted itself over the Mughal naturalism that had filtered into Bijapuri painting during the previous three decades. The sultan stands in a strange landscape; a small hill gives way to a mysterious field of gray that ends abruptly at a group of pink and blue rocks where birds perform aerial tricks. 'Ali 'Adil Shah is oddly drawn, his fingers distorted to follow the shape of his shield, rather than the form of human anatomy.
source Philadelphia Museum of Art
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