Exhibition held for the commemoration of the 2500th Anniversary of the Founding of the Monarchy in Iran, whose initiative came from the Portuguese Ministry of Foreign Affairs. With an historic aspect and another one more directed towards artistic production, the event provided the promotion and diffusion of the cultural relations between the two countries.

The initiative of these commemorations came from the Portuguese government, specifically from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which nominated an extensive organizing committee, composed by academics specialized in Persian culture, counting with the technical assistance of various services of the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation (FCG).

The event sought to highlight two paths of research: the diffusion of the sources for the history and the artistic production of the represented period, a result of the cultural relation between the two countries; from the beginning it was assumed the larger representation of historical documents in the set of the exhibition, as indicative of its initial monographic intention. In this sense, and in complementarity, besides the usual exhibition catalogue, the FCG also published a bibliographic catalogue dedicated to the study of the relations between Portugal and Persia. (Das Relações entre Portugal e a Pérsia, 1500-1758: Catálogo Bibliográfico, 1972)

The collection of selected art works, besides their intrinsic individual value, provided collectively a higher documental source for the precursory role of Portugal in the contacts with the East, in the economic and cultural areas. This is clearly assumed in the preface of the exhibition catalogue:

“(...) all that is shown in the exhibition, in this artistic sector, only aims to exemplify, as far as possible, and should only be taken as a ‘sampling’ plan, those articulations that result in impulses with which, in fact, we have been able to enrich our own artistic personality”. (Portugal e a Pérsia, 1972)

At the onset of this temporary exhibition there was the intention of dedicating greater visibility to the Islamic art section, namely by the representation of Persian art in foreign institutions, inclusive initiating conversations with the department of Islamic art of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, in New York, in order to assess a possible collaboration for the loan of some pieces. The extensive documental volume assembled, in a first phase, showed it was impossible to carry out the mentioned project, proposed in a field of future intentions to be fulfilled by the FCG. (Notes by Museum Department, Gulbenkian Archives, MCG 03139)

Still to mark these celebrations, the FCG has edited five more publications dedicated to the theme: Persian Art. Calouste Gulbenkian Collection (1985); L’Ambassade de Gregório Pereira Fidalgo à la Cour de Chah Soltan-Hosseyn 1696-1697 (1971); Un Voyageur Portugais en Perse au Début du Dix-septième Siècle: Nicolau de Orta Rebelo (1972); L’Ambassade en Perse de Luis Pereira de Lacerda et des Pères Portugais de l'ordre de Saint-Augustin, Belchior dos Anjos et Guilherme de Santo Agostinho, 1604-1605 (1972).

Finally, the exhibition Portugal and Persia was inaugurated on 10th July, 1972, with the presence of the Head of State, Admiral Américo Tomás, and with the Ambassador of Iran M. Hassan Pakravan. The cultural programme associated with the event also held a cycle of conferences dedicated to the relations between Portugal and Persia, which included the collaboration of several international experts, such as the Director of Studies of the École Pratique des Hautes Études of Paris, Jean Aubin, the Head Consultant of the Islamic Art Department at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, Richard Ettinghausen, and the Portuguese professor António da Silva Rego, president of the Portuguese Academy of History.

To document the exhibition, director António Campos produced a film about the exhibition, under the guidance of the FCG Fine Arts Department.

The events included in the commemorations of the 2500th anniversary of the foundation of the monarchy in Iran were widely disseminated and mentioned in the national press.

At a meeting of the FCG Board of Directors, the Ambassador Pedro Teotónio Pereira, who passed away a few months after the closing of the celebrations, would congratulate the President of the FCG for “(...) the success of the exhibition Portugal and Persia [is] demonstrative of the high quality and professional level reached by the competent Services of the Foundation and by the important contribution given to culture with the publishing of remarkable historical and artistic works  regarding the relations between those two countries(...).” (Minute no. 41/72 of the Board of Directors, 12 Jul. 1972, Gulbenkian Archives, SBA 1538)

The success of the exhibition would also be validated by the significant number of visitors who attended the event, 12.371 visitors (Internal Communication, 25 Aug. 1972, Gulbenkian Archives, SEM 00026).