Shelf 4. Persia

Much of Malmö Konstmuseum’s Persian collection was donated by or purchased from the Paris-based Turkish art collector Hassan Chabestari during the 1930s and 40s. He had an enormous private collection of antique earthenware and textiles, primarily from Iran and Turkey.

Ernst Fischer, who was the museum’s director during the 1930s, had a close friendship with Chabestari and tried for a long time to convince him to donate or sell his collection, but Fischer was rebuffed many times before Chabestari eventually agreed to donate a portion of it. In 1947, Chabestari died in an accident, and two years later the rest of his collection was auctioned off in Paris because he had never signed a will.