Last week, the Dallas Museum of Art announced that over the next year it will be taking delivery of containers filled with richly colored carpets and delicate textiles, gleaming lusterware and carved rock-crystal, finely wrought metalwork and folios from illustrated manuscripts, intricately decorated book bindings and splendid calligraphy. The almost 2,000 pieces, created from the eighth through 19th centuries from across the Muslim world, will begin arriving in May from London, where Edmund de Unger (1918-2011) collected and lived with them, treasuring them for their beauty and the knowledge they embodied.

Read More: Dallas Museum of Art Makes a Great Leap with the Keir Collection

See also: Dallas Museum of Art Adds Major Collection of Islamic Art

One of the world’s largest private holdings of Islamic art will come to the Dallas Museum of Art on loan in May, museum officials announced Monday [February 3rd]. The loan, described as renewable in 15 years, will transform the museum’s Islamic art collection into the third largest of its kind in North America, according to DMA officials. “We are deeply grateful to the collection’s trustees for entrusting us with this unparalleled collection, which will enhance the DMA’s growing strengths in the area of Islamic art,” DMA director Maxwell Anderson said in a prepared statement.

Read More: Dallas Museum of Art Adds Major Collection of Islamic Art

See also: Dallas Museum Lands a Rich Trove of Islamic Art

While Texas may have the fifth largest Muslim population in the United States by some estimates, its public art collections have only recently begun to reflect the 14-century sweep of Islamic history. But on Friday [31st January], with the stroke of a pen — sealing a complex agreement hashed out over months — the Dallas Museum of Art will become the long-term custodian of one of the most important collections of Islamic art in private hands.

Read More: Dallas Museum Lands a Rich Trove of Islamic Art