Turkmen Jewellery at the Met

In an act of great serendipity, the Met re-opened its Islamic Art galleries at the beginning of this month – soon after I found out that this collection included some Turkmen pieces. I made haste to the galleries.

Sadly, as with all museums, the Met can display only a fraction of its true collection. According to a small placard, 300 pieces have been donated to the museum courtesy of Marshall and Marilyn R Wolf. A handful are on display, tucked away in one of the Islamic Art galleries.

What you see here is the one cabinet of Turkmen pieces. (Focusing on the beautiful Yomut armbands/armlets, which can be seen in much greater detail here.)

What my low quality phone photos fail to fully convey is how amazingly beautiful these pieces are, how finely crafted. Close-up pictures of a few are available here; a huge selection from the collection is documented in an amazing book, Turkmen Jewelry: Silver Ornaments from the Marshall and Marilyn R Wolf Collection by Layla S Diba, which I bought in the museum bookstore.

I really loved this headdress, too.

This also shows a gorgeous section of tile (not Turkmen). The Islamic Art galleries as a whole are absolutely stunning and I strongly recommend visiting them. From the Ottoman carpets to the gilded and minutely detailed Qu’ran manuscripts to the Damascus room (which you are not allowed into; you must queue to admire it over a low barrier), it’s an excellent and diverse selection.

I asked one of the information desk people if any of the other Turkmen pieces were displayed elsewhere in the museum. He directed me to a cabinet alongside one of the dining galleries, which he knew contained Islamic pieces and might include some Turkmen work. It did! One gorgeous, quite large dorsal ornament.

That, sadly, was all – but I bought the book so I could see the far wider collection, plus it talks a lot about contexts and handily identifies which tribal group the pieces belong to (although then it says the origin could be ‘Central Asia or Iran’ which is less helpful). Naturally some of its information contradicts other books I have read, but hey, welcome to history. Much of it is incredibly useful.

I also popped into the hall of Assyrian wall reliefs, mostly so that I could point at them and go “One day I will read you!”