Manama: Dar Al Athar Al Islamiyyah (DAI) museum in Kuwait on Tuesday said that it was adding three high-resolution artworks from their collection to the Google Art Project.
The high-resolution images of “Timur Ruby”, a cobalt blue glazed jar and a carved limestone relief, allows art lovers the discovery of minute aspects of paintings they may never have seen up close before.
The “Timur Ruby” is a large spinel drop (249.31 carats), roughly teardrop shaped with a pronounced indentation on the lower right, of gabled section in the front and near flat at the back. The stone is transversely drilled at the upper end, and inscribed on the front with the names of six rulers.
The cobalt blue glazed jar is renowned for the fact that the names of both the maker, the owner and the city of manufacture are incorporated into the overall calligraphic design.
The carved limestone relief is one of very few architectural remains from the Umayyad citadel complex of Amman in Jordan.
“Sharing artefacts is a joy. Now more people can enjoy them through the Google Art Project,” Shaikha Hessa Al Sabah, director general of the museum and co-owner of Al Sabah collection, said.
Maha Abu Elenein, head of communications for Google in the MENA region, welcomed the partnership with the museum.
“The collaboration between the Google Art Project and Dar Al Athar Al Islamiyyah museum in Kuwait enables the promotion and preservation of their artwork to a massive global audience,” she said. “Together with them and our partners from around the world, the Google Art Project aims to inspire more people to discover their passion for art and come and visit the real thing,” she said in remarks e-mailed to Gulf News.
Dar Al Athar Al Islamiyyah museum in Kuwait is the second museum in the Arab region to become part of the Google Art Project following the Museum of Islamic Art in Qatar last year.
The partnership between the museum and Google is part of a global expansion of Art Project, which now counts more than 250 partners around the globe.
The latest additions bring 1,500 high-resolution artworks to the site and boosts the total number of high-resolution objects and other artworks to more than 40,000.
DAI is a cultural organisation based on the private art collection owned by Shaikh Nasser Sabah Al Ahmad Al Sabah, founder of the Al Sabah Collection, and his wife, DAI director general and co-founder Shaikha Hessah Sabah Al Salem Al Sabah.
Since its inception in 1983, DAI has grown from a single focus organisation created to manage the loan of the Al Sabah Collection of art from the Islamic world to Kuwait to become an internationally recognised cultural organisation.
