Sir Alfred Chester Beatty, an American mining magnate and one of the greatest collectors of the twentieth century, collected Islamic and Iranian artworks and manuscripts from West Asia, the International Quran News Agency (IQNA) reported.
According to iqna.ir, Chester Beatty earned an abundant wealth via copper trade and his nickname was “King of Copper.”
He was born in New York in 1875. Despite his Irish origin, he got American nationality, but he gained British nationality in 1933. Chester Beatty studied at Columbia University. He died in 1968.
As an American mining mogul, he could earn plenty of money through his copper business; then, he tried to attain Iranian and Islamic artworks.
He visited the West Asia region several times and acquired Islamic artworks, because he was very interested in such an art.
One of the famous museums in western Europe is located in Dublin, capital of Ireland. The museum is part of the Chester Beatty Library, which is one of the largest museums in Ireland. The Chester Beatty Library was established in 1950 to preserve a collection of books and artworks collected by Sir Alfred Chester Beatty.
The collection is being displayed at two galleries of Sacred Traditions and Arts of the Book at the museum. The present museum, on the grounds of Dublin Castle, opened on 7 February 2000, the 125th anniversary of Beatty’s birth and was dubbed as European Museum of the Year in 2002.
Both galleries display manuscripts, miniature paintings, print and antique books as well as artworks from Iran, the Islamic world and eastern and western Asia regions.
There are more than 4,000 manuscripts from Iran and other Muslim countries. Some of the books, including a manuscript of the holy Quran written by Ibn Bawwab, date back to over 1,000 years ago.
The Islamic collection of the museum consists of works in Arabic, Persian and Turkish languages as well as manuscripts of the holy Quran and some Indian artworks.
Arabic papers of the museum cover different ranges of fields, including religion, history, jurisprudence, medicine, geography, mathematics, astronomy and linguistics.
The Persian collection comprises of miniatures and manuscripts from renowned poets such as Ferdowsi and Nezami.