Dr Fuchsia Hart · 24 July 2025, 5–6:30 pm BST · Online
Abstract
In 1949, Gurgan Faiences by Iranian curator Mehdi Bahrami was published in Cairo. In the work, Bahrami presents a group of 12th/13th-century ceramics which, he argues, were made and recently excavated in Gurgan, in Iran’s northeast. Many of the objects published were owned by Clement and Raymond Ades in Cairo. The V&A now holds 40 examples of these ceramics from Iran once owned by members of the Ades family, with many more in other British collections. Further objects published by Bahrami were owned by Jacques Matossian, an art and antiquities dealer also based in Cairo. In this talk, Fuchsia Hart will focus on the little-known figure of Matossian and his wider role in the lives of the ‘Gurgan faiences’ and the formation of the Ades Collection. While Bahrami’s publication provided a starting point for this research, Fuchsia will draw on documentation still held in the V&A archives to explore the collection histories of the Ades objects. Using additional archival material, the objects will also be contextualised within the wider market for art from Iran in 20th-century Egypt. While many questions remain about the provenance of the Ades Collection and the larger proposed group of ‘Gurgan faiences’, this talk will begin to explore the story of their journey from Iran to England, via Egypt.
About the speaker
Fuchsia Hart is a historian of the arts of the Islamic world, specialising in the arts of Iran. She has been the Sarikhani Curator for the Iranian Collection at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London since 2022. She is currently working on a number of projects, including a display of royal dress from Saudi Arabia and an article about British ceramics at the Qajar court. She holds a PhD in Asian and Middle Eastern Studies from the University of Oxford. Her PhD thesis explored the patronage of major shrines in Iran and Iraq by the second Qajar ruler of Iran, Fath ‘Ali Shah (r.1797-1834). In the past, she has held positions at the Bodleian Library (Oxford), the University of Warwick (UK), and Turquoise Mountain (Kabul).
