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3654

Antique Persian Safavi Silk Textile. Tomb Cover with Calligraphy
Safavi Dynasty
1501 -1722A.D Circa 1600

Size 16'' x 8''
Size 41 x 20cm

Below are Detial & Back Images

Provenance: Collection of Rafi Y. Mottahedeh

Persian Textile
History

Mr. Rafi Y. Mottahedeh was born in 1901 in the central Persian town of Kashan, famous for its calligraphers, its rugs and its silk and gold brocade, the cloth that formed the heart of my great-grandfather’s business.

Rafi Y. Mottahedeh was a renowned New York-based collector and a generous benefactor to many institutions, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art and Princeton University. He founded an eponymous company which supplied porcelain to several US Presidents. During the 1930s and 40s, he began collecting Islamic and Pre-Islamic art, assembling mostly ceramics, manuscripts and textiles. Items within his collection rarely make appearances at auction in the United States.

Highlights among the collection include an important Kashan lusterware dish that was included in the historic 1949 publication of Gurgan Faience by Medhi Bahrami. In addition, several items in this auction were included in Phyllis Ackerman's "Exhibition of Persian Art" at the Iranian Institute in New York in 1940, and Richard Ettinghausen's 1974 exhibition titled, "Islamic Art from Princeton Collections," held at The Art Museum of Princeton University.

Persian Safavi Silk Calligraphy Textile