Islamic treasures with global provenance — from Austria to North America

The American heiress Adeline Pepper Gibson could have stepped straight out of the pages of a Henry James novel. A Gilded Age socialite with a taste for adventure, she travelled the world before abandoning her husband for the battlefields of France, and dying from pneumonia in 1919. As a ‘new woman’, her life was as unconventional as it was improbable, and her legacy survives in an unexpected corner of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, where 64 blocks of sculpted granite that she collected on her travels have been reassembled into a fragment of the sacred temple city of Madurai in southern India.

Gibson is one of a number of intrepid characters who discovered, commissioned or made objects featured in the Art of the Islamic and Indian Worlds including Rugs and Carpets sale at Christie’s in London on 12 November 2026, including a Mughal emperor, an Egyptian sultan and a 19th-century Austrian manufacturer. Together, they offer a fascinating insight into the history of the Islamic world.

Gibson’s legacy is represented in this sale by a small collection of works that she bought back from her travels, including three South Indian necklaces. ‘They are beautiful pieces,’ says Sara Plumbly, head Islamic and Indian Art, ‘with a lot of symbolism related to love and fertility.’

Offered for the first time since Gibson acquired them on her honeymoon in 1912, the necklaces reflect the collector’s enthusiasm for adventure and discovery. ‘She was obviously an intrepid character,’ says Plumbly. ‘She died young and didn’t have any children, so her collection has been passed down through other members of the family. We were delighted when the necklaces were first shown to us.’

A highlight among the rugs and carpets offered in the sale is a Caucasian ‘Dragon’ carpet from the Karabagh region of Azerbaijan, dating from the late 17th or early 18th century, when the Caucasus was under Persian control. ‘This particular example of the “Dragon” carpet displays a bold geometric lattice enclosing paired stylised dragons,’ says Louise Broadhurst, international head of Rugs and Carpets. ‘The dragon motif first appeared in Chinese textiles, but it travelled across the Silk Road, and here it’s been displayed in a very different style. Today, the most notable collections of “Dragon” carpets are those of the Textile Museum in Washington, D.C., and the Turkish and Islamic Arts Museum in Istanbul. This rare carpet is part of a private Italian collection which, to the best of our knowledge, remains unpublished.

‘One of the fabulous things about the Caucasian weaving tradition is the use of colour. These bold shades are mostly sourced from the flora surrounding the villages. A particularly rare dye is the Tyrian purple, which was sourced from the mucus of a certain species of snail. It would have been incredibly hard to gather and was only used on the most exquisite and important commissions.’

Also in the sale are 11 folios from the Zafarnama, or Book of Victory, commissioned by the Mughal emperor Akbar in the late 16th century. The manuscript recounts the exploits of Timur (also known as Tamerlane), the Central Asian conqueror from whom the Mughal dynasty claimed their descent.

Timur was a legendary figure with almost superhuman military capabilities, and Akbar used his connection to the warrior to lend weight to his own administration. ‘The Mughals really aspired to his model of leadership,’ says Plumbly. Famously, Akbar was unable to read or write, but he was shrewd enough to understand the power of art and the written word.

Over his lifetime, he commissioned hundreds of beautifully illustrated books and had a court atelier full of talented artists. One of these was Muhammad Daulat (or Dawlat), who painted this Zafarnama. ‘We don’t know how many pages existed in the original manuscript,’ says Plumbly, ‘but through the 11 folios offered here, you can really trace Timur’s history, from his assemblies with saints, to important political meetings, through battles and the construction of monuments. It gives you a very good idea of his timeline.’

It is often difficult to get a sense of the splendours of the ancient Islamic world from a carved stone or a painted tile, yet sometimes a fragment of an object can convey its magnificence. The upper section of a 14th-century Mamluk mosque lamp offers an intriguing glimpse of the grandeur of Sultan Hasan’s vast religious and civic complex in Cairo. Incorporating a mosque, mausoleum, schools and a hospital, it proclaimed both his piety and his authority.

‘Ask any collector of Islamic art what they really want and the answer will almost certainly be a Mamluk lamp,’ says Plumbly. There are very few of these fragile objects on the market. ‘They are technically very difficult to make,’ explains the specialist. ‘You’re making a glass object that needs to be heated up enough to apply enamel without it breaking — it’s an incredibly complicated process.’

The lamp would have hung within this complex, its glow illuminating a space designed to inspire awe. ‘The inscription on the top is a very well-known verse from the Qur’an which is interrupted with these epigraphic blazons of Sultan Hasan, so when illuminated, you would have this manifestation of God and the sultan’s name,’ says Plumbly. Even removed from its original surroundings, the object remains an eloquent reminder of the importance of architecture and its enhancements in the expression of Mamluk power.

If the lamp evokes the splendour of a medieval court, a finely woven Kashmiri rug tells a more complicated story of artistic ambition and imperial enterprise. Made in Srinagar, it is associated with C.H. Hadow and Co., the firm established in 1888 by the Austrian-British merchant Charles M. Hadow, who helped turn Kashmir’s carpet-weaving industry into an international commercial enterprise to rival the Dutch East India Company.

The rug is a perfectly miniaturised copy of a court Safavid carpet, woven with finely spun pashmina wool on a delicate silk structure. The weave is so incredibly fine, comprising more than 2.5 million knots, that it can only be properly observed through a magnifying glass.

All these masterpieces reveal a history of influence and exchange that travelled beyond borders. ‘There are highlights here drawn from all corners of the Islamic and Indian world,’ says Plumbly. ‘There really is something for everyone.’

Art of the Islamic and Indian Worlds including Rugs and Carpets is on view 7-11 November 2026 at Christie’s in London

Explore Islamic and Indian Art, and Rugs and Carpets at Christie’s