Clouds and Gold Dust: Decorated Papers

from the Ettinghausen Collection

Exhibition Website

Oct 29 2018 - Mar 24 2019

One of the distinctive features of manuscripts from Iran, Ottoman Turkey, and Mughal and Deccani India is the frequent use of decorative techniques in the borders and even on the written surface of the book's pages. 

Clouds and Gold Dust: Decorated Papers from the Ettinghausen Collection presents works on paper, enhanced with marbling, gold sprinkling, stenciled designs, and decoupage, alone or in combination with one another or with illumination. Ranging from the fifteenth to the twentieth century, the thirty-three folios on view reveal an endless variety of patterns and embellishments, surrounding elegantly penned poetic verses and, eventually, forming freestanding images.

Credit: Exhibition overview from museum website

  • Books / Manuscripts
  • Design

Exhibition Venues & Dates