Sheikh Hassan bin Mohamed bin Ali al-Thani, vice- chairperson of the Qatar Museums board of trustees and founder of Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art, during the opening of The Hunt exhibition with other officials and dignitaries yesterday.
A new exhibition, The Hunt: Princely Pursuits in Islamic Lands, was launched at the Museum of Islamic Art (MIA) yesterday under the patronage of Qatar Museums (QM) chairperson HE Sheikha Al Mayassa bint Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani. The exhibition will run until January 9, 2016, and entry is free of charge.On display in the museum’s Special Exhibitions Gallery, MIA’s autumn exhibition focuses on hunting as a royal activity in Islamic lands, a major part of elite life in the Islamic world from the earliest times until the present day. A wide variety of objects are being presented in The Hunt exhibition – manuscripts, ceramics, metalwork, textiles, glass, woodwork and hunting tools – dating from the 11th to the 20th centuries, according to a statement.Frequently commissioned and exhibited for royal display, such artworks form a significant component of collections held by prominent Qatari and international museums.The Hunt forms part of the Qatar Turkey 2015 Year of Culture, which aims to create sustainable platforms for collaboration and cultural exchange between Qatar and Turkey. As such, a number of key artworks from the Topkapi Palace Museum and the Turkish and Islamic Arts Museum in Istanbul will be on show as part of the exhibition, highlighting the commonalities between the Qatari and Turkish cultures.Shaika al-Nassr, head of exhibitions at MIA, said: “This fun and absorbing exhibition aims to use hunting as a means of exploring the ‘princely cycle’ and how notions of kingship were formulated, expressed and depicted in the Middle East and beyond.”In conjunction with the exhibition, there will be a series of public programmes and events aimed at a broad audience for adults, academics, families and schools to enjoy, including lectures by international and local experts, falconry displays, poetry, film and art workshops, the statement adds.In addition, MIA is organising workshops for school students, including “A King and His Falcon”, which is inspired by The Hunt and allows children to discover the importance and symbolism of the falcon in Islamic art.On November 29, MIA will hold a seminar related to the exhibition, featuring international and local speakers.