Fashioning Immersive Displays in Egypt and Beyond
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chapter 4 Fashioning Immersive Displays in Egypt and Beyond Among the collectors who lent works of Islamic functions. Fourteenth-century Alhambra jars serv- Art to the 1865 and 1869 retrospective shows of ing as vases are an eloquent illustration. (Fig. 88) the Union centrale des beaux-arts appliqués à But arrangements could follow more sophisti- l’industrie in Paris, two groups can tentatively be cated conventions. The Oriental and Renaissance differentiated in terms of display. On the one hand, galleries installed in Paris after 1881 by Jean-Léon were art lovers who typically kept their pieces in Gérôme’s brother-in-law, Albert Goupil, come to glass cases and cabinets, such as the Marquess mind. Furnished respectively as a drawing-room of Hertford, or alternatively were to install “trea- and a bedroom, for visitors, the rooms evoked sure chambers” (in German, Schatzkammer), “practically living museums,” through the qual- as the Rothschilds famously did. Alphonse de ity, historicity, function and arrangement of the Rothschild, who exhibited “Arab” enamelled glass assembled objects. The installation involved cre- in 1865, had his precious specimens, together with ativity. Instead of carpeting the floor, Goupil’s rock crystal, carved ivories and medieval enamels, most sumptuous rugs were hung on the walls, as if locked in a mezzanine room at his hôtel particu- canvases; because of their bright colours and ico- lier [private mansion] on 2 Saint-Florentin Street nography, they were said to compare favourably in Paris. The smoking room created in 1889 by with European paintings.2 (Fig. 89 and 90) Ferdinand de Rothschild at Waddesdon Manor for The decorative idea was taken a step further his valuable Renaissance Museum, visually epito- by collectors who delighted in architectural sal- mises how objects, such as the famous Palmer Cup vage, by inclination or opportunity. They were (a thirteenth-century enamelled glass beaker from individuals who had the occasion to spend long Egypt or Syria mounted on a French silver-gilt foot) periods of time in the Middle East, and notably and a Mamluk mosque lamp, were presented: they in Egypt. The “style rooms”3 they created with his- were lined up and protected under glass.1 (Fig. 87) toric fragments in Cairo accomplished more than On the other hand were artists, architects and providing atmosphere and individuality; they would-be designers who engaged in arranging became the collectible itself. Diverse techniques immersive displays for their curios and pieces of were used to revive historic décors. Collectors salvage. Some of the atmospheric rooms they cre- turned to reuse and patina, as well as replica and ated were rather casually conceived. In the studio revival; in most instances these were employed in of Mariano Fortuny y Marsal in Rome, the bric- combination. Whatever their flaws or artificiality, à-brac coexisted side by side with valuable col- lectibles and some of them performed mundane 2 Mercedes Volait, “Les intérieurs orientalistes du comte de Saint-Maurice et d’Albert Goupil: des ‘Cluny arabe’ au Caire et à Paris à la fin du XIXe siècle,” in The Period Rooms. 1 The content of the room is now at the British Museum as Allestimenti storici tra arte, collezionismo e museologia, the Waddesdon Bequest; Pipa Shirley and Dora Thornton, eds. Sandra Costa, Dominique Poulot, Mercedes Volait eds., A Rothschild Renaissance: New Look at the Waddesdon (Bologne: Bononia University Press, 2017), 103–14. Bequest in the British Museum (London: The Trustees 3 For the different types of historic rooms (style rooms, of the British Museum, 2017); Ulrich Leben, “A High period rooms, epoch rooms), see Benno Schubiger, “‘Period Victorian legacy at Waddesdon Manor: Baron Ferdinand’s Rooms’ als museographische Gattung: ‘Historische Zim- smoking room and its contents since the creation of mer’ in Schweizer Museen,” Zeitschrift für Schweizeri- Waddesdon,” Journal of the History of Collections 27, no. 3 sche Archäologie und Kunstgeschichte 66, no. 2–3 (2009): (November 2015): 335–45. 81–112 (82). © Mercedes Volait, 2021 | doi:10.1163/9789004449886_006 This is an open access chapter distributed under the terms of the CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 license. Mercedes Volait - 9789004449886 Downloaded from Brill.com10/09/2021 08:28:39AM via free access Fashioning Immersive Displays 127 figure 87 Ferdinand de Rothschild’s ‘Renaissance Museum’ at Waddesdon Manor Photograph by Chris Lacey/National Trust, Waddesdon Manor, 2017 figure 88 Interior del estudio de Fortuny, Roma [Interior of Mariano Fortuny y Marsal’s studio in Rome, Italy]. Engraving La Ilustración Española y Americana 19, supplement to fasc. X, 15 March 1875, 180–81 Mercedes Volait - 9789004449886 Downloaded from Brill.com10/09/2021 08:28:39AM via free access 128 chapter 4 figure 89 Edmond Bénard, Untitled [Albert Goupil’s Oriental gallery at 9 Chaptal St., Paris, c. 1884–88]. The young man reclining on the sofa is his nephew Jean Gérôme. Albumen print. 20 × 27.5 cm Edmond Bénard, Intérieurs privés d’artistes. Ateliers d’artistes, 1880–1910, f. 35. Paris, Bibliothèque de l’INHA, 4 Phot 021 and irrespective of how we view them today, the arrangements incorporating salvage have on sub- attempts at recreating historic interiors discussed sequent Revival interiors, once the mass-market here, fit the model of Gesamtkunstwerks, i.e. total reproduction of themed rooms became accessible works of art in their own right. to the middle-class in the late nineteenth-century? The concept, and its Cairene manifesta- The responses are not unequivocal. tions, experienced various lives and afterlives. The phenomenon raises in turn a set of queries from the point of view of materiality and cross- 1 Atmospheric Interiors for Western cultural interactions – the perspective that runs Connoisseurs throughout this book. How did the modern art of accommodating architectural salvage, devel- Many purchases of antiques in Cairo or Damascus oped in Cairo by Western artists and patrons for during the 1860s–70s were connected to mod- the sake of Revivalism, work at a material level? ern recreations of Middle Eastern architecture, Did it connect to the centuries-long Egyptian whether at home or in the Middle East itself. culture of reuse, or not? What impact, if any, did Olana House, the family mansion designed in Mercedes Volait - 9789004449886 Downloaded from Brill.com10/09/2021 08:28:39AM via free access Fashioning Immersive Displays 129 figure 90 Edmond Bénard, Untitled [Medallion carpet displayed at Albert Goupil’s Oriental gallery on 9 Chaptal St., Paris], c. 1884–88. Albumen print. 26.9 × 20 cm Edmond Bénard, Intérieurs privés d’artistes. Ateliers d’artistes, 1880–1910, f. 37. Paris, Bibliothèque de l’INHA, 4 Phot 021 Mercedes Volait - 9789004449886 Downloaded from Brill.com10/09/2021 08:28:39AM via free access 130 chapter 4 upstate New York from 1871 onwards by Frederic Tour overseas. The valuables ranged from “stones Edwin Church, is an early example. It was con- coming from the ancient sites of Petra and the ceived “after a pattern of a Damascus house,” upon Parthenon to coloured-stone architectural frag- his return from a long journey to Europe and the ments from a house in Damascus, rugs, Ottoman Near East that took him and his family to Syria and embroidery, Arab spears and armors, and mere Palestine from January to May 1868.4 Elements tourist curios.”8 Among them, was a sixteenth- of recognisable Syrian origin contributed to the century thirty-two-tile panel installed in the vesti- design and interior decoration of the house. Some bule of the front porch at Olana. (Fig. 91) Featuring of the valuables in Goupil’s rooms may have shared a vase flanked by two cypresses, the panel is typical an identical Syrian provenance; they were indeed of the Iznik-style ceramics produced in Ottoman most probably bought at the same time, possibly Damascus. Both the tones of the glazes – turquoise, at Abu Antiqa. Albert Goupil’s first encounter olive green, blue and manganese over a white with Islamic artworks took place during his trav- ground – and the design – floral sprays rising from els through the Arab provinces of the Ottoman a vase decorated with prunus flowers ̶ are char- Empire in January-June 1868 with a group of art- acteristic of that type of production.9 Placed in ists; the caravan was led by his brother-in-law central positions on walls or in niches, tile panels Jean-Léon Gérôme.5 The party crossed paths with decorated the main rooms in Syrian architecture, the Churches twice, at Jerusalem on 3 April 1868 domestic and religious alike.10 and in Damascus on 2 May 1868. Since one of the A close look at the panel shows that it had artists of the French group, Famars Testas did been both mended and filled with spare tiles to produce several sketches during two afternoons replace missing parts and it may even have been at “Abou Antiqua’s,”6 it is safe to assume that the formed out of several incomplete sets. Full speci- famous antique dealer and his treasures were mens were probably very rare. In 1871, British dip- familiar to all of them. Another possible cus- lomat Richard Burton reported to the artist and tomer of Abu Antiqa, in person or in absentia, was Syrian-tile collector Frederic Leighton that “he Gaston de Saint-Maurice, the patron of a remark- was willing to have a house pulled down for [him], able “modern Arabic Palace” built in Cairo in 1872– but the difficulty is to find a house with tiles.”11 The 79. As we shall see, some architectural fragments cannibalisation of tiles had already been going on connect his endeavour to Damascus. for some time in Damascus. As a whole, Olana reflects the Churches’ expo- 1.1 A Damascene Home Up the Hudson: sure to Damascene houses.