ORIENTALIS ARS ORIENTALS VOLUME XXX 2000 ARS ORIENTALIS EXHIBITING THE MIDDLE EAST COLLECTIONS AND PERCEPTIONS OF ISLAMIC ART LINDA KOMAROFF, GUEST EDITOR SPONSORED BY Freer Gallery of Art, Smithsonian Institution Department of the History of Art, University of Michigan PUBLISHED BY The Department of the History of Art University of Michigan Managing Editor Ars Orientalis solicits scholarly manuscripts on the art and Margaret A. Lourie archaeology of Asia, including the ancient Near East and the Is- lamic world. The journal welcomes a broad range of themes and University ofMichigan approaches. Articles of interest to scholars in diverse fields or dis- Editorial Board ciplines are particularly sought, as are suggestions for occasional Martin J. Powers thematic issues and reviews of important books in Western or Jennifer E. Robertson Asian languages. Brief research notes and responses to articles in Margaret Cool Root previous issues ofArs Orientalis will also be considered. Submis- Walter M. Spink sions must be in English, with all non-English quotations pro- Thelma K. Thomas vided in translation. Authors are asked to follow The Chicago Manual Style 14th ed. A style sheet is available from the man- of , Freer Gallery ofArt aging editor or at the Ars Orientalis home page. Editorial Committee Special subscription rates are currently available as a mem- Milo Beach bership option through the American Oriental Society. For more Joseph Chang information write the American Oriental Society, Hatcher Gradu- Louise Cort ate Library, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109- Vidya Dehejia 1205, or access the society’s homepage at http://www.umich.edu/ Massumeh Farhad ~aos/. Ann Gunter The full text ofArs Orientalis is also available in the electronic Thomas Lawton versions of the A rt Index. Thomas W. Lentz Jenny So Jan Stuart On the cover: Detail of “Portable Objects and Metalwork,” Expo- James T. Ulak sition ofMuslim Art ofAlgiers, Algiers, April 1905. Photo: Cliché Ann Yonemura Famin, published by A. Fontemoing. After Georges Marçais, L’Exposition d’Art Musulman d’Alger, Avril 1905 (Paris, 1906), Editorial Offices pi. X. Full photo reproduced on page 23. Department of the History of Art Tappan Hall University of Michigan Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109-1357 World Wide Web Address http://www-personal.umich.edu/ ~plourie/ ISSN 0571-1371 Printed in the United States of America © 2000 Department of the History of Art, University of Michigan ORIENTA LIS EXHIBITING THE MIDDLE EAST 1 Exhibiting the Middle East: Collections and Perceptions of Islamic Art Linda Komaroff, Los Angeles County Museum ofArt 9 Au Bonheur des Amateurs: Collecting and Exhibiting Islamic Art, ca. 1880—1910 David J. Roxburgh, Harvard University 39 Persian Tiles on European Walls: Collecting Ilkhanid Tiles in Nineteenth-Century Europe Tomoko Masuya, Tokyo University 55 Islamic Arts in the Ottoman Imperial Museum, 1889-1923 Wendy M. K. Shaw, Ohio State University, Columbus 69 Collecting the “Orient” at the Met: Early Tastemakers in America Marilyn Jenkins-Madina, Metropolitan Museum ofArt 91 “A Gallant Era”: Henry Walters, Islamic Art, and the Kelekian Connection Marianna Shreve Simpson, Walters Art Museum 113 “A Great Symphony of Pure Form”: The 1931 International Exhibition of Persian Art and Its Influence Barry D. Wood, Boston, Massachusetts REVIEW ARTICLE 131 Encyclopedic Encounters: A Review Article Margaret Cool Root, University ofMichigan, Ann Arbor BOOK REVIEWS 139 Porcelain Stories: From China to Europe , by Julie Emerson, Jennifer Chen, and Mimi Gardner Gates Jan Stuart, Freer Gallery ofArt and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery 141 Devi: The Great Goddess: Female Divinity in South Aisan Art, edited by Vidya Dehejia Mary Storm, Mussoorie, Uttar Pradesh, India 143 Saptamätrkä Worship and Sculptures: An Iconological Interpretation of Conflicts and Resolutions in the Stoi'ied Brämanical Icons , by Shivaji K. Panikkar Gary Smith, TheJ. Paul Getty Trust’s Bibliography of the History ofArt LINDA KOMAROFF Exhibiting the Middle East: Collections and Perceptions ofIslamic Art ABSTRACT Recent interest in the historiography of Islamic art has focused on scholarship, museums, and collecting from the mid-nineteenth through the mid-twentieth century, the formative period for the field. Such scholarly attention is essential insofar as friture direc- tions in the field will be delineated in part through rediscovering the past. This special volume of Ars Orientalis presents an in- triguing view of the early period of Islamic art history by examin- ing collections, collecting patterns, and special exhibitions in Western Europe, the United States, and Turkey as part of the evolutionary process of the discipline. l Ars Orientalis , volume XXX (2000) LINDA KOMAROFF his gathering of papers addresses in the evolutionary process. 1 The conference, which some of the ways in which collecting pat- took a thoroughly historical but uncritical approach T terns, collections, and special exhibitions to the subject, provided the inspiration for a much have shaped and altered scholarly as well as popular smaller North American meeting held at the Royal perceptions of Islamic art. What was collected, in the Ontario Museum, Toronto, in 1998 under the aus- Middle East and in the West, in the past and up to pices of Historians of Islamic Art. The present col- the present day, is crucial to these perceptions. The lection of papers is an outgrowth of the Toronto history of collecting is closely tied to the history of meeting and should be viewed as a complement to the field of Islamic art and its maturation as a schol- the proceedings of the V&:A conference. A compre- arly discipline. In fact, these two spheres have devel- hensive treatment of so broad a subject is clearly be- oped a reciprocal relationship: what was collected yond the confines of any single collection of papers; initially dictated what was studied, and what was however, this special volume of Ars Orientalis will, studied has helped to refine collecting patterns. Spe- it is hoped, provoke discussion and further interest. cial exhibitions, ranging from broadly defined nation- The issues discussed in this volume help to de- alistic and formalistic approaches, as in the great Per- lineate some of the developments in the field of Is- 1 to a lamic art, a field that has evolved considerably in the sian Exhibition of 93 1 , exhibitions focusing on 2 particular period, dynasty, medium, or even a single last three decades. Edward Said’s Orientalism , work of art, especially from the 1980s until the postmodernism, postcolonialism, theoretical and present, have influenced and in turn been influenced contextual approaches, as well as a broadening of the by developments in the field. geographical and temporal areas of inquiry have all Along with special exhibitions, the installation influenced the discipline and have led some scholars of a museum’s permanent collection provides one of to question the traditional notion of a “universal” Is- the most public arenas— that is, outside of the Middle lamic art. Insofar as the future directions of the field East—for experiencing Islamic art at first hand. On will to some extent be determined by reexamining the most basic level, the installation itself, the choice the past, the essays in this volume should make an of objects, their arrangement, their interrelations and important contribution. These papers, which them- implied visual relations make a fundamental state- selves demonstrate different methodologies and sys- ment about Islamic art and, by extension, the cul- tems of interpretation, concentrate on the collecting tures that fostered its development. The evolution as well as temporary and permanent exhibition of of museum installations (both permanent collections Islamic art in Western Europe, the United States, and and special exhibitions), from an emphasis on the Turkey, from the second half of the nineteenth concerns of ethnography and applied arts and crafts through the first half of the twentieth century. With- to a more historical, synthetic approach, has largely out purporting to be comprehensive, this volume been driven by advances in the field of Islamic art. presents an intriguing view of the early history of the More recently, a renewed interest in Western muse- field of Islamic art, one that is partially filtered ums as educational institutions, coupled with a new through the veil of commerce. sensitivity to multieulturalism, has begun to alter the David Roxburgh’s article focuses on collections general concept and concerns of the installation. and temporary exhibitions of Islamic art (some of The topics outlined above are important for un- which were primarily commercial in nature) in the derstanding the historiography of Islamic art, which last decades of the nineteenth and the opening years has begun to attract scholarly attention. One recent of the twentieth century. He emphasizes the role publication that addresses certain of these issues is played by exhibition practices and Western muse- the proceedings of a conference held at the Victoria ology as a means of understanding the motivations and Albert Museum, London, in 1996, whose aim and responses of scholars/amateurs/collectors. He was to examine the growth and change of Islamic art begins with a Active description of a display of Orien- as a serious discipline, focusing on the role of collec- tal caipets and textiles in a Parisian department store tors, museums, and scholars, primarily in Europe, and goes on to consider the relation of commercial EXHIBITING THE MIDDLE EAST design and display to design and display in early ex- of the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Islamic galler- hibitions of Islamic art (commercial and otherwise). ies, which opened to the public in 1975. Revealing His premise is both significant to the subject and rel- for the first time the vast scope of the museum’s Is- evant to museum practice in the later twentieth cen- lamic collection, this installation displayed more than tury, not merely because of the burgeoning commer- 1,000 objects, organized chronologically and geo- cial enterprises that are today attached to many of graphically among ten galleries.