The Detroit Institute of Arts
The Islamic collection was expanded in the 1920s under the leadership of the first curator of Near Eastern art. The arts of Islam are exhibited adjacent to the galleries of Asian Art on the first floor and includes the book arts, calligraphy and miniature painting, and objects of glass, ivory, lacquer, wood, and stone, with strong collections of metalwork, ceramics, and textiles. Representing the works of an extraordinarily wide range of cultures and civilizations from antiquity to the present, the Middle Eastern, Islamic and Asian Art Collection includes pieces from a broad geographical arc including the Middle East and Asia.The collection was established in 1890 with Detroit pharmaceutical manufacturer Frederick K. Stearns’ gift to the museum of thousands of pieces from the Middle East and Asia. The collections of Ancient and Islamic Art and that of Asian Art developed separately over the years, with several key acquisitions like the nearly 4,000 year old statue of Gudea of Lagash from Mesopotamia/Babylon (present-day Iraq) and the monumental Head of Buddha from Korea. In 2003, the collections were merged into the Middle Eastern, Islamic, and Asian Art Collection.
As part of its activities the department has also presented major exhibitions of Egyptian, Near Eastern, Classical, and Islamic art and curators have participated in excavations in Iraq and Egypt.
