Clouds and Gold Dust: Decorated Papers from the Ettinghausen Collection

One of the distinctive features of manuscripts from Iran, Ottoman Turkey, and Mughal and Deccani India is the frequent use of decorative techniques in the borders and even on the written surface of the book's pages. Clouds and Gold Dust: Decorated Papers from the Ettinghausen Collection presents works on paper, enhanced with marbling, gold sprinkling, stenciled designs, and decoupage, alone or in combination with one another or with illumination. Ranging from the fifteenth to the twentieth century, the thirty-three folios on view reveal an endless variety of patterns and embellishments, surrounding elegantly penned poetic verses and, eventually, forming freestanding images.

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The exhibition is made possible by The Hagop Kevorkian Fund.