Museum

The study of Iranian shrines inevitably leads one into museum storages, galleries, and archives. This gallery presents many forms of collecting history and museological practice. In addition to illuminating some damages wrought to Iran’s cultural heritage, we highlight positive steps in preservation and education and spotlight some lesser-known collections.

Luster Market In the 1880s, Antoine Sevruguin took a photograph of luster objects and tiles on display in Tehran, including stars and crosses from the Emamzadeh Yahya. In this curatorial collaboration, we consider patterns of taste and collecting and track down some of these pieces.
Mihrab: Essay The Emamzadeh Yahya’s luster mihrab is invaluable Iranian architectural and cultural heritage. In this essay in three chapters, Keelan Overton and Hossein Nakhaei consider its displacement, commodification, and aestheticization over 160 years from Varamin to Honolulu.
Mihrab: Visual Timeline Developed as a complement to the lengthy essay, this visual timeline synthesizes the mihrab’s complex historiography and presents a dynamic visual tour of the many individuals, archives, and events that have shaped its physical and conceptual transformations.
Photo Archive: Louvre In the 1930s, André Godard took important photographs of the renovated Emamzadeh Yahya. This film with archivists Alejandra Tafur Manrique and Martina Massullo takes us into the Godard Archives at the Louvre and offers a tutorial on the material supports of photography.
Luster Tiles: Doha The Museum of Islamic Art in Doha preserves nine tiles attributed to the Emamzadeh Yahya. In this film, curator Nicoletta Fazio introduces the star tile on display, activates its inscriptions through sound and animation, and provides a glimpse of the other tiles in storage.
Ashura Hall: Abyaz The Abyaz Palace is a museum of anthropology located within the Golestan Palace complex in Tehran. In this essay, art historian Negar Shariatnia explores the museum’s so-called Ashura Hall and its display of Twelver Shiʿi material culture and ritual objects. Coming soon.