“Feast Your Eyes: A Taste for Luxury in Ancient Iran,” will be on view at the Smithsonian’s Freer and Sackler Galleries beginning February 4. The galleries have not yet scheduled the closing date.
The exhibition coincides with the 25th anniversary of the founding of the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, and a large number of the objects were part of Sackler’s original gift. These are juxtaposed with works from the Freer Gallery of Art, the Sackler’s sister museum, one of the first institutions in the US to collect ancient Iranian metalwork.
Installed in the connecting gallery between the two museums, the exhibition will highlight how rulers expressed the political power and material wealth of their empires through portable luxury objects.
The vessels on display include finely hammered bowls, cups, plates, ewers and bottles. Many of the objects were intended for elaborate banquets, for which the Iranians were known throughout the ancient world. Others were used for more solemn religious ceremonies.
Among the works is a silver-gilt royal hunting plate with the portrait of Shapur II (309-379 CE), a Sassanian ruler recognizable by his distinctive crown. Fashioned out of 19 separate components, the plate is also one of the earliest Sassanian examples to depict a king hunting—one of the most enduring royal images from the ancient Near East.
Vessels depicting rulers or royal hunting scenes, an activity long associated with kingship in the region, had yet another function: they were used primarily as diplomatic gifts and sent as symbols of imperial authority to far-flung corners of the Iranian Empire and along the Silk Road as far as China, to strengthen diplomatic and commercial relations.
Military conflict between Iran and its western neighbors, first with Alexander of Macedonia, which brought the Achaemenid Empire to a close in 331 B.C., and later with the Romans, who vied for territorial and economic control, introduced new techniques and motifs into Iranian metalwork. For example, the figure of Dionysus, the Roman God of wine, together with his female companions, appears on several vessels.
Another object on display from the Sassanian period is a wine horn, terminating in the head of a gazelle with a small spout. Horn-shaped drinking cups of this type were popular for at least a millennium.
The Arthur M. Sackler Gallery is located at 1050 Independence Avenue SW and the adjacent Freer Gallery of Art is at 12th Street and Independence Avenue SW on the National Mall in Washington, DC. Hours are 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. every day, except Christmas, and admission is free. The galleries are located near the Smithsonian Metro station.
More information about the Freer and Sackler Galleries is available at asia.si.edu.