Wit and Wine A New Look at Ancient Iranian Ceramics from the Arthur M. Sackler Foundation

October 18 - December 23, 2003

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Wit and Wine: A New Look at Ancient Iranian Ceramics from the Arthur M. Sackler Foundation features forty-five extraordinary pieces that illustrate the 5,000-year ceramic tradition that flourished in ancient, pre-Islamic Iran until 100 BCE.

Curated by Trudy S. Kawami, Ph.D., Director of Research for the Arthur M. Sackler Foundation, Wit and Wine is the first major exhibition of ancient Iranian ceramics in over a decade. The beautiful, technically sophisticated, and often-amusing ceramics of ancient Iran demonstrate a rich yet little known tradition comparable to pre-Columbian, Chinese, and Greek achievements.

The exhibition is organized by the Arthur M. Sackler Foundation, New York. Arthur M. Sackler, M.D. (1913-1987), a research psychiatrist, medical publisher, connoisseur and collector of art, established the Arthur M. Sackler Foundation in 1965 to make his extensive art collections accessible to the public. The Foundation collection has more than 900 works of art including Chinese ritual bronzes and ceramics, Buddhist stone sculpture and the renowned Chu Silk Manuscript, the oldest existing Chinese written document.

 

Images:

 

Left: Acc. no. 82.4.3 (Exhibit no. 31), Vessel With Two Feet, Northern Iran, 1000-800 BCE

Center: Acc. no.82.4.5, Exhibit no. 45, Head and neck of a bull, Southwestern Iran, 1000-600 BCE

Right: Acc. no. 70.7.1, Exhibit no. 36, Stag-head rhyton, Northern Iran, 1000-550 BCE