When the Islamic galleries of New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art reopened in 2011 (after eight years of renovation), it was heralded as a landmark moment for deepening American understanding of the Islamic world. Amid live performances and lectures, the museum’s 15 new galleries brought audiences into a physical world of lavish carpets, ceramics and miniature paintings. Since the Met’s Islamic revival, the Louvre in Paris and the British Museum in London have also invested in glittering new galleries for Islamic art. And this year alone in the United States, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Baltimore’s Walters Art Museum and the Dallas Museum of Art each has an exhibition dedicated to the genre.
Read More: Opulent and Apolitical: The Art of the Met’s Islamic Galleries