Louvre to lend Islamic art treasures to the Smithsonian

The Musée du Louvre will lend 26 works from its Islamic art collection to the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Asian Art in Washington, DC, for the exhibition From the Louvre: Masterpieces of Islamic Art (26 September–18 January 2027). The show, which will only be presented in Washington, spans the 7th to 19th centuries and includes objects ranging from present-day Spain to India, such as the Lion of Monzón (10th–11th century) and a large Ottoman ceramic bowl dated around 1480. Co-curator Simon Rettig and NMAA director Chase F. Robinson said the exhibition will examine how objects became “masterpieces” within Islamic traditions, including the concept of tuhfa, and will trace complex provenance histories. Examples include ivory pen cases commissioned by Mughal emperor Jahangir and later acquired by Louis Cartier in 1912, and the 14th-century Mamluk brass basin known as the “Baptistery of Saint Louis,” which reached France long before the Louvre became a museum in 1793.

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