“It’s a food-oriented culture,” says Linda Komaroff, LACMA’s curator and department head for art of the Middle East and a specialist in Islamic work, who organized the show, which runs from December 17 to August 4 and then travels to the Detroit Institute of Arts. “So many tablewares were produced, and they survived in enormous quantities.”
As the invocation of sultans suggests, this is an exploration of the highest-end items, made for the palaces of the privileged. The 250 objects and artworks—dating from the 8th to the 19th centuries—come from LACMA’s collection as well as from institutions around the world; the show also features a contemporary commissioned work, an animated multimedia installation by Sadik Kwaish Alfraji, A Thread of Light Between My Mother’s Fingers and Heaven.
