Zoroastrian News - اخبار زرتشتیان

... It was the first time ever that a Sassanid exhibition was held in France. Considering that the start of the exhibition coincided with the reopening of the Museum after tow years of halt due to renovation works, the exhibition was highly welcomed by the people and succeeded in attracting large numbers of visitors ...

Tehran, 4 January 2007 (CHN Foreign Desk) — The Exhibition of Sassanid Culture and Art which was inaugurated at Cernuschi Museum of Paris on September 14th last year will come to an end next week. Based on the available statistics obtained through a survey by the Cernuschi Museum experts, more than 30,000 people visited the exhibition during the past two and a half months since the start of the exhibition.

More than 200 pieces of artworks including silver, metal, and plaster artifacts belonging to the Sassanid dynastic era (224-651 AD) were put on public display at the Cernuschi Museum.

According to Mohammad Reza Kargar, director of Iran’s National Museum, with the end of the exhibition, more than 15 Sassanid artifacts displayed at Cernuschi Museum selected from the collection of Iran’s National Museum will be returned to Iran by the end of January 2007.

“It was the first time ever that a Sassanid exhibition was held in France. Considering that the start of the exhibition coincided with the reopening of the Museum after tow years of halt due to renovation works, the exhibition was highly welcomed by the people and succeeded in attracting large numbers of visitors. Many efforts were made to hold the Sassanid exhibition in Cernuschi Museum. Holding of the Sassanid exhibition at the Museum was made possible by the cooperation of a number of famous museums of the world such as St. Petersburg’s Hermitage Museum, Louvre Museum of Paris, Iran’s National Museum, London’s British Museum, and New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art,” added Kargar.

According to Kargar, the exhibition catalogue was an excellent source of information on the culture and civilization of the Sassanid dynastic period.

One of the biggest and most important museums in Paris, the Cernuschi Museum contains some 12,400 pieces of historic artwork (900 of which are on permanent display) and houses Europe’s fifth largest collection of Chinese art and France’s second largest museum of Asian art.

The building of the museum was constructed in 1870; however, it was bequeathed to the city of Paris some 100 years ago by the wealthy Italian financier and philanthropist Henri Cernuschi (1820-1896) who set out on a trip around the world, traveling through Asia from September 1871 to January 1873 and acquired some 4000 works of art during his stay in Japan and China. He later dedicated the artifacts to the people of France. This museum was closed due to reconstruction of the building; and the Exhibition of Sassanid Culture and Art marked its reopening.

The third Persian Empire, the Sassanids ruled for more than four centuries starting from 224 AD. The Empire’s territory encompassed all of today’s Iran, Iraq, Armenia, and Afghanistan, eastern parts of Turkey, eastern parts of Syria, northwest of the Indian Subcontinent, Caucasian region, Central Asia and Arabia and also parts of Egypt, Jordan, Israel, and Lebanon during the reign of Khosrau II from 590 to 628. The Sassanid dynasty collapsed with the invasion of Arabs in 651 AD.

Soudabeh Sadigh
foreigndesk@chn.ir