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The Arts of Iran
Short course
+44 (0)20 7942 2000
Sold out
This short course will draw fully from the V&A’s unique and extensive Iranian collections, with object-viewing sessions and store visits throughout the Museum. While surveying the art history of Iran, the course will also provide thoughtful analysis of the Museum’s collecting history in the nineteenth century, when ‘Persian Art’ was pursued vigorously. Victorian designers, notably William Morris, held a passionate ‘idea of Iran’, and sought to borrow ‘Persian’ styles for their own new work.
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Course Leader
Dr Moya Carey
Dr Moya Carey is the Iran Heritage Foundation Curator for the Iranian Collections, V&A. Her current research examines nineteenth-century European collecting histories across the Middle East, the arts and architecture of the Qajar period in Iran, sixteenth- and seventeenth-century carpets from Iran, Persian manuscript-painting, and inlaid metalwork.
I have taken many short courses at the V&A and I come away each week feeling inspired, stimulated by the facts, and wishing to know even more. 2015/2016 Short Course Student
Course overview
With a national heritage dating from the ancient Persian Empire to the modern Islamic Republic, the arts of Iran tell an extraordinary cultural story of poetry, monuments, and taste. The arts of the book were paramount, with long courtly traditions of fine calligraphy, sophisticated illumination, glorious narrative painting, and exquisite bookbinding. Using complex techniques in many other media, Iran’s craftsmen produced a remarkable designed world, including lustre tilework, silver-inlaid metalwork, and enormous knotted pile carpets such as the sixteenth-century Ardabil Carpet in the V&A. With different court capitals throughout the ages, the most remarkable today is the great city of Isfahan, home to the Safavid dynasty in the seventeenth century, then the hub of a global trading network for silk.
This course will have a half term on the 14 February.
£507 full price, £456 over 60s, £380 concessions
(concessions are available for ES40 holders and registered disabled people)
Explore the subjects you love
Delve deeper into the subjects you love in a group who share your passion, and enjoy guided access to the V&A collections with expert tutors and lecturers. Refreshments served on arrival each day.
Enrol now
Short course: The Arts of Iran
10 January 2018 - 21 March 2018
£380.00 - £507.00
Sold out
Need help enrolling? Talk to the admissions team:
+44 (0)20 7942 2000
Open 10.00 - 13.00, Monday to Sunday (closed 24-26 December)
