Behind a dark room in Shangri La, ceramic tiles shimmer with gold. They’re fragments from a sacred shrine in Iran, art created more than 700 years ago.
The exhibit, “Fragments of Light: Ilkhanid Lusterware,” brings together six rare ceramic tiles. It’s the largest surviving collection of lusterware tiles in the world.
Navid Najafi, a curator and associate director of programs and social practice at Shangri La Museum of Islamic Art, Culture & Design, said the exhibit isn’t about the objects themselves but the story behind them and why they’re at the museum. He hopes visitors will get to see them.
“They get to learn about this idea of fragmentation and how they were removed from their original context,” he said to HPR. “They also have an opportunity to learn about the research project that's telling the story for the first time of how these tiles were actually removed and dispersed throughout the world.”
As early as the 13th century, potters in Iran began creating sophisticated tile work. They’re embedded into niche walls within shrines called a mihrab. They point to Mecca. The artwork is unique because of its sun-like shape that glitters when light hits it.
Most of the lusterware tiles were removed by European art collectors. Now, these tiles are scattered throughout the world and mostly held in museums.
“The mihrab crossed the Atlantic six times before Doris Duke purchased it in 1940,” Najafi said. “It was in several exhibitions in Europe, in America, and the art dealer was essentially ... creating the market to be able to actually sell this.”
The exhibit highlights research by Shangri La’s 2025 Scholar in Residence into Emamzadeh Yahya, a Shiite Islamic site in Iran where the lusterware tiles were originally taken. The research project revealed how damaging it was to remove the lusterware from the shrine. Under a UV light, there are fractures within the tiles.
“These pieces were extracted, they were removed, they were torn out of the walls of these shrines, and that process is very violent,” Najafi said. “So, oftentimes these tiles would break.”
Part of that history raises difficult questions about ownership and stewardship of this lusterware.
“It's a very deep responsibility, and Shangri La operates as a museum of Islamic art, but we also serve as a center for cultures and ideas," he said. “And that dual identity drives the importance of this exhibition as the home of pieces like these tiles.”
Najafi said the museum has been talking to the caretakers of the shrine in Iran. It was an opportunity for them to ask each other questions and create a relationship.
“By facilitating conversation and dialog, then we open up the space for ideas for how we can best steward the legacies that we've inherited,” he said.
The exhibit will be on display until next July.
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