A collector's passion

Over the course of her long life, Ezzat-Malek Soudavar (1913-2014) assembled an exemplary collection of Persian lacquerware, including book covers, mirror cases, and intricately designed pen cases created by Iran's leading lacquer artists of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. These nearly two hundred examples of refined Persian lacquerware are recent gifts from Abolala Soudavar to Harvard Art Museums in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and to the Smithsonian's Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery in Washington, DC. Essays address the history and major lacquer artists of the Safavid and Qajar eras as well as the materials and techniques of Persian lacquerwork. Detailed highlights and an illustrated catalogue of the Soudavar collection complete this insightful look into the complexities of Persian lacquer.