ON DISPLAY: Archer’s ring. Mughal, India. 19th century. Gold, diamond, enamel.

By Anand Holla

With the year coming to a close, the deadlines for some of the year’s most fascinating exhibitions that have either been extended to or were slated to finish in the early days of 2016 are also closing in.
One such must-watch exhibition is The Hunt: Princely Pursuits in Islamic Lands at the Museum of Islamic Art (MIA), which ends on January 9 — the entry is free.
Throughout the Islamic world, the act of hunting, rich with symbolism and pageantry, was – and in some places, still continues to be – an essential element in the lifestyle of princes, sultans and pashas, “as it required horsemanship, strength and courage, allowing rulers to demonstrate their skills and assert their authority.” This is also why images of the hunt are commonly found in Islamic art.
At The Hunt, you can pore through the “the lifestyle, power and bravery of royal hunters”. The MIA has pointed out that the exhibition draws on highlights from the collections of Qatari and Turkish museums “to explore and celebrate the sport of hunting, as well as the related activities of polo, feasting, and fighting, all of which feature richly in Islamic art.”
On display in the museum’s Special Exhibitions Gallery, it focuses on hunting as a royal activity in Islamic lands, a major part of elite life in the Islamic world from earliest times until the present day. As such, images of the hunt in almost every medium are commonly found in Islamic art, whether in lavishly illustrated manuscripts, inlaid metalwork or colourful ceramics.
The wide variety of objects presented in The Hunt exhibition – manuscripts, ceramics, metalwork, textiles, glass, woodwork and hunting tools – dating from the 11th to the 20th centuries, allows you to have a peek into the lives of princes, sultans and caliphs and explore how the notion of kingship was expressed throughout the Islamic world.
“It shows a certain type of imagery that has been repeated in Islamic art. It offers all different kinds of mediums through different time periods. We are going through Spain to India,” Julia Tugwell, Assistant Curator at MIA, had told Community at the launch of the exhibition in September, “We see this imagery of huntsmen and its association with royalty so it has become a sort of symbol and it is interesting to see that this symbol has spread all over the place. It is not just confined to one country; it keeps reappearing in textiles or on ceramics.”
“We talk about animals that were involved and we use different kinds of animals. But one theme in particular is falconry which is a symbol of royalty and comes up quite often. Then, we move on to the animals that were hunted,” Tugwell had further pointed out.
Frequently commissioned and exhibited for royal display, such artworks form a  significant component of collections held by prominent Qatari and international museums. The Hunt forms part of the Qatar Turkey 2015 Year of Culture. As such, a number of key artworks from the Topkapı Palace Museum and the Turkish and Islamic Arts Museum in Istanbul are on show as part of the exhibition, highlighting the commonalities between Qatari and Turkish cultures.