Damascus Room

Unknown artist

dated 1214 (1799–1800)

wooden wall and ceiling paneling, decorated with raised ornaments (ʿajami/pastiglia), metal leaf, lacquer, and paintings

Aga Khan Museum

A highly ornate, square wooden ceiling paneling with intricate geometric and floral patterns, painted and gilded, hangs from a modern ceiling. A decorative lantern is suspended from its center. Further Reading The Damascus Room in the Aga Khan Museum offers spectacular evidence of the ʿajami technique. Craftsmen applied raised ornaments to wooden boards and overlaid these ornaments with gold leaf, tin foil, and copper alloy. Next, they partially coated the boards with tinted lacquers, and finally painted them with vibrant patterns, flowers, and landscape scenes in brilliant satiny and matte pigments. Gilded letters cresting the walls of this Damascus Room enhance the luxurious effect. They also confirm the room’s date of completion: unconventionally written in words rather than numbers, the date 1214 (1799–1800) can