Aga Khan Collections on Display in Toronto

Preserving the heritage,
one piece at a time

Tomorrow, the Aga Khan Museum will open in Toronto, offering "unique insights and new perspectives into Islamic civilizations and the cultural threads that weave through history binding us all together [...]  The Museum will also be a centre of education and of learning, and act as a catalyst for mutual understanding and tolerance."  One of the "highlights" of the 1,000 or so collection, is a page from a famous Iranian manuscript, which was ripped apart by collectors after it arrived in the US in the 20th century. According to Souren Melikian (April 27, 1996):

When intact, which the manuscript was until the 1960s, when it passed from the hands of the Paris Rothschilds into those of Arthur A. Houghton Jr., it must have been fabulous. It then included 258 paintings executed in the royal atelier to say nothing of the abstract illumination. [...] Houghton started taking out pages in the 1960s.  

Like other North American collections' mummy masks. See PACHI Saturday, 16 April 2011, 'Collectors' Vandalism of Islamic Art'. It is worth noting that over on another blog, a person claiming to be Arthur Houghton III is an outspoken advocate of cultural property of all kinds being taken to the USA to be "properly looked after" by collectors there.