While on a trip to Russia in 1911 to court new clients, Louis Cartier sent a letter to his father, Alfred, writing, “It seems to me that the selections of new items we should offer for sale must inevitably be the Russian or even Persian style.” By this time, Louis had been collecting Islamic art for several years, having seen the exhibition of Islamic art at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in 1903, in Paris, and an important 1910 exhibition of Islamic art in Munich.
He was buying patterned Persian rugs, illuminated manuscripts, and gem-set objects such as hookahs and pen cases from Armenian antiquarian dealers, who were flowing into Paris from Turkey. He was also assembling a formidable library on the arts of the Near East and Far East, including such treasures as The Thousand and One Nights and Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, as well as The Grammar of Ornament (1856), Owen Jones’s illustrated design lexicon of Islamic forms and patterns.
