The Metropolitan Museum of Art will debut a new gallery dedicated to Safavid and later Persian art (1500–1924) as part of a suite of Islamic art exhibition spaces called the Galleries for the Arts of the Arab Lands, Turkey, Iran, Central Asia, and Later South Asia scheduled to open in 2011. The Sharmin and Bijan Mossavar-Rahmani Gallery, named for the space's benefactors, will present masterpieces created in the cities of Tabrîz and Isfahân under the imperial Safavid dynasty in the 16th and 17th centuries, as well as important works from the Zand and Qâjâr periods in the later 18th and 19th centuries. Highlights include the famous painted illustrations to The Book of Kings, which were assembled for Shâh Tahmâsp between 1525 and 1535, and the Emperor’s Carpet — one of the largest Persian carpets in the world — from the mid-16th century.

An additional gallery, focusing on the medieval city of Nishapur in northeastern Iran, will also open in 2011 and contain materials excavated by a Met expedition to Iran in the 1930s and ’40s. From architectural fragments found at the site, the museum has reconstructed a small, highly decorated room from the 10th century.

Sharmin and Bijan Mossavar-Rahmani have long been supporters of Islamic art at the Met. Sharmin is a managing director at Goldman Sachs and the author of several books on portfolio management. Her husband, Bijan, is chairman of the board of Foxtrot International, a Franco-American oil and gas company, and CEO of Mondoil Enterprises, an energy holding company in the United States.