A Collector's Passion: Ezzet Malek Soudavar and Persian Lacquer

Abolala Soudavar generously offered his mother Ezzat Malek's collection of Persian lacquerware as a gift to the Harvard Art Museums in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and to the Smithsonian's Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery in Washington, D.C. The catalogue opens with an overview of Mrs.Soudavar's remarkable life in Iran and her interest in the arts. Other essays address the history and work of major lacquer artists of the Qajar era as well as the materials and techniques of Persian lacquerwork. Twenty highlights from the collection and a fully illustrated checklist complete this introduction to one of the world's foremost collections of Persian lacquer.