Category Archives: art

Dar al-Kiswah

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On May 10, Sotheby’s is auctioning material from the Dar al-Kiswah. Between 1818 and 1961, the Cairo workshop was responsible for making the black cloth (kiswah) that adorns the Ka’bah. In 1961 production moved to Saudi Arabia, and now Sotheby’s is selling embroidery templates and archival documents from the workshop in their Travel, Atlases, Maps and Natural History sale. It also contains material related to the Mahmal, the empty camel litter that accompanied pilgrimages in place of the ruler, and photographs by the royal court photographer. The collection is expected to sell for 60,000 – 80,000 GBP, coming in behind only a 1570 Bertelli map of the world.

Other items in the sale include an edition of Muhammad Sadiq Bey’s Mash’al al-Mamal (The Torch of Mahmal) printed in 1880/1881 and an albumen print of the Ka’bah by Abdul Ghaffar, also from the 1880s.

Via Islamic Arts.

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It is all theatre, all incredibly false…

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This painting by Francesco Hayez just ripped my heart out and stomped all over it. Which is supposed to be what’s happening to the protagonist, Maria, who has just been informed by Rachele that her lover is unfaithful. The dramatic title: Vengeance is Sworn. It’s part of a triptych on love and revenge, along with The Secret Accusation, now in the Civica Pinacoteca Malaspina of Pavia, and A Rival’s Revenge (The Venetian Women), the whereabouts of which are currently unknown.

Francesco Hayez, 1851. 237 x 178 cm, Vienna, Liechtenstein Museum

Francesco Hayez, 1851. 237 x 178 cm, Vienna, Liechtenstein Museum

A Maffei verse was originally carved into the frame: “via dal mio cor si vil pensiero” (banish from my heart so vile a thought).

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A note stands in for the absent referent that structures the narrative drama of the painting, the unfaithful beloved. Maria touches Rachele’s hand as if to push it away, while Rachele clutches Maria’s shoulder, completing a circuit between the women that calls into question the centrality of the missing third party.

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A figure silhouetted on a balcony in the background seems to be turned away from the drama. The deserted canal functions a semi-private space in which secrets are revealed, but only to some.

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Masking and unmasking shift the drama from the realm of the quotidian into theater, implicitly problematizing the erotic intrigue as a performance. The true feelings of the actors, submerged beneath a set of scripted gestures and historicizing costumes, remain a mystery. Perhaps there is no depth to be found here, only surface.

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Vengeance is Sworn
Francesco Hayez, 1851
Oil on Canvas, 237 x 178 cm
Liechtenstein Museum, Vienna
Inv.-No. GE1642

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The Hunt: Performing Masculinities

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Images of hunting have been charged with socio-economic issues and highly visible performances of gender for as long as they have existed. But technological innovations (in particular the popularization of film and digital photography) have transformed the relationship between class and gender that characterizes such images and their creators in some unexpected ways.

How do we get from here

Royal Hunt, Noth Palace of Ashurbanipal, British Museum

Royal Hunt, North Palace of Ashurbanipal, British Museum

to here

A Shooting Party, Edith H. Lowber, BMC 2009.23.7

A Shooting Party, Edith H. Lowber, BMC 2009.23.7

from which this is but a small step:

Howard Family Hunt, Racine WI, 11/23/2003

Howard Family Hunt, Racine WI, 11/23/2003

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Persian Illuminated Manuscripts

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The HIAA listserv has been abuzz with people seeking images of miniatures for the study of the Shahnameh and Persian MSS in general. The recommondations are listed below. There are a few I’m not sure how to categorize, but the rest fall under Shahnameh Projects, Museums, Libraries, and Subject guides.

SUBJECT GUIDES:

McGill
http://www.mcgill.ca/library/library-findinfo/subjects/humanities/islamic/manuscripts/

UCLA
http://guides.library.ucla.edu/content.php?pid=22907&sid=997329

Archivalia list of Islamic MSS online
http://archiv.twoday.net/stories/11445658/

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SHANAMEH PROJECTS

Cambridge Shahnameh Project
http://shahnama.caret.cam.ac.uk/new/jnama/page/

Shahnameh Project at Princeton University
http://etcweb.princeton.edu/shahnama/start.epl

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MUSEUMS

The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
http://www.metmuseum.org/works_of_art/collection_database
Instructions: A search under the category Islamic art brings up 12,350 items. Refining the search can be tricky “miniature” brings up 15 items “painting” brings up 313 items (most but not all from manuscripts) “manuscript” brings up 712 items (not all of them illuminated), “codices” brings up 1,169 items (most entries with scanned images of at least a few pages)

The Freer/Sackler Galleries of the Smithsonian (Washington)
http://www.asia.si.edu/collections/search.cfm

Fitzwilliam Museum on the Epic of Persian
King: the Shahnameh of Ferdowsi
http://www.iranheritage.org/shahnameh_of_ferdowsi/default.htm
http://www.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/gallery/shahnameh/vgallery/section1.html

Museum of Fine Arts Boston
http://www.mfa.org/search/collections?culture=7764&objecttype=10

Harvard Art Museums
http://www.harvardartmuseums.org/collection/

The Walters Art Museum (Baltimore, Md.)
http://art.thewalters.org/viewgallery.aspx?id=1254
(scans of 58 complete Islamic manuscripts, viewable cover-to-cover &
downloadable)
http://www.thedigitalwalters.org/
http://poetryprayer.thewalters.org/

The Los Angeles County Museum of Art
http://www.lacma.org/collection/index.html

Asia Society
Temporary exhibition: A Prince’s Manuscript Unbound: Muhammad Juki’s Shahnamah

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LIBRARIES

Princeton University Library – Princeton Digital Library of Islamic Manuscripts
http://library.princeton.edu/projects/islamic/index.html

Harvard University Library – Islamic Heritage Project
http://ocp.hul.harvard.edu/ihp/manuscripts.html
(scans of more than 280 complete Islamic manuscripts, viewable cover-to-cover & downloadable)

University of Michigan Library – Islamic Manuscripts at Michigan
http://www.lib.umich.edu/islamic/

The British Library’s “Images Online” database
http://www.imagesonline.bl.uk/
Instructions: search using keywords (e.g. Persian – 156 images; Nizami – 60 images; Shahnama – 45 images; etc.). Registering on the website allows access to non water-marked preview images. Images are of selected pages; no whole manuscripts.

The Institute of Ismaili Studies
www.iis.ac.uk
Gallery
Useful links

Yale University Library
http://www.library.yale.edu/neareast/exhibitions/exhibit20071.html

The Vatican Library
Online Catalogues
Digitization project information

Bodleian Library
http://www.bodley.ox.ac.uk/csb/OrientalSelectMSS2.htm

Bibliothèque nationale de France (B.n.F.) Mandragore, database of illuminated manuscripts of the B.n.F.
http://mandragore.bnf.fr/jsp/rechercheExperte.jsp
Instructions: A search under country of origin (nom de pays): Iran turns up 185 manuscripts from Iran (incl. Arabic and Armenian MSS as well as
Persian), each one represented by multiple images of illuminated pages. It may be easier to navigate through the “Classement thematique” link. Search is by shelfmark or by keyword. For searching the database, keep in mind that French romanization differs from the Anglo-American usage:
Persian: French romanization: Chamseh
English romanization: Khamsa(h)
Clicking on the option “plein ecran” allows one to see full-screen versions of the images.

Chester Beatty Library
http://www.cbl.ie/
Temporary exhibition: Heroes and Kings of the Shahnama

BORN-DIGITAL ARCHIVES
That is, I think the archives are born-digital, not their content.

Asnad.org Digital Persian Archives
http://www.asnad.org

E-Corpus
www.e-corpus.org
Tazkira of Shaykh Safi al-Din of Ardabil (Iran, Shiraz, Safavid)
Nigaristan by Ghaffari (Safavid)
http://www.e-corpus.org/search/index.php
Instructions: you can search by languages of documents. A new version of e-corpus will be available at the beginning of March with additions and refinements.

Details from Princeton Islamic MSS., no. 56G. Page 173:2, Rustam, Zal before Kay Khusraw. Featured image from History of Nigaristan, Illuminated Frontispiece, Walters Art Museum, Ms W.598, fol. 1b