From the history of the creation of Islamic Collections in the Georgian National Museum
The historical and artistic value of the Islamic collections of the Georgian National Museum is high, and their chronological and geographic range is exceptional. Because of the reconstruction and reorganization of the museum, part of the collections is in storage and only a small selection is on display in the Museum of Fine art.
The interest in collecting Islamic objects started from the mid 19th century when the first museological institutions were established in Caucasus. During scientific expeditions and field trips, the scientists headed by first director of the Caucasian Museum, Gustav Radde, acquired Islamic artifacts, which embellished the exhibition halls of the museum. The other sources of the collections were donations of artifacts by Georgians and foreigners - nobles, scholars, political figures, including members of the Bagrationi Royal Family, Voroncov, Kaznakov, Mejd-Al Saltane were between them.
Islamic art and its decorative motives inspired the designers of the first permanent exhibition halls of Caucasian Museum to decorate the interiors in an Oriental style.
The Islamic artifacts were collected also by various societies and their museums in the 1870s and 1880s (among them, The Society for the Propagation of Literacy Among the Georgians, and The society for Ethnography and History) The most important among them is the Islamic collection of the famous Georgian photographer and philanthropist Alexandre Roinashvili (1846-1898), who bequeathed his metalwork and porcelain collections to The Society for the Propagation of Literacy Among the Georgians in 1899. After the liquidation of all these institutions in 1927, the Islamic collections were divided between the Museum of Fine Arts and Museum of Georgia (the former Caucasian Museum).
In 1921, the importance and increased number of the Islamic artifacts allowed the administration (Director- Dimitry Shevardnadze), of the newly opened Georgian National Gallery (later the Museum of Fine Art) to open a special wing for its permanent Oriental collections, to which the core collection of Persian paintings from the Caucasian Museum were transferred. The Georgian National Gallery also organized one of the first temporary exhibitions dedicated to the 1000th anniversary of Firdousi in 1931, where major objects from the Islamic world were presented.
The Department of Oriental art was opened in Museum of Fine Arts in 1954. In three permanent exhibition halls the artifacts from the Far & Near East and the Islamic world were displayed. The director of the museum, academician Shalva Amiranashvili, prepared that exhibition. His contribution to the study of Islamic art is very important; his articles and books about Late Persian painting and miniatures (Qajar Art) are the first monographic works in the field.
From 1990 until today, the Oriental department has seven permanent exhibition halls – five among them dedicated to Islamic Art.