25 - 31 October 2001
Issue No.557
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Al-Ahram Weekly Online 25 - 31 October 2001 Issue No.557 |
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The china syndrome
I always liked the Luxor Museum for its opening hours: an after-dinner stroll through the cool hall is such an easy end to a hard day's sightseeing, so I was glad to find Cairo's Museum of Islamic Ceramics keeps late hours. The Egyptian collection of post-Pharaonic ceramics is housed in a charming small palace in Gezira Street, next door to the Marriott Hotel and opposite the Gezira Sporting Club.
Three fine lustre painted bowls from the 11th-century Egyptian Fatimid period
The palace was built by Prince Amr Ibrahim in 1923 and remained his family residence until the revolution. From 1952 to 1971 it was used as a club by the Arab Socialist Union, after which it held the fine arts collection of the Mr and Mrs Mohamed Mahmoud Khalil Museum until these returned to their original home in Giza. The Ceramics Museum opened in February 1999, bringing together exhibits from the Islamic Art Museum, treasures from this and other Cairo palaces, and newly- discovered pieces from the excavations at Fustat.
With only a hazy memory of disappointment at the shortage of Fatimid lustre-ware when I last went to the Islamic Art Museum, I went along with an open mind. But my heart lifted once I stepped foot in the entrance hall. Amr Ibrahim had ensured his was a home fit for a prince, and I'm sure his heart, wherever it now is, has been lifted too. The building has undergone some cleaning and restoration, so it can truthfully be described as a gem rather than a mere example of shabby-chic style, as it was when I last saw it. The hall is lit to show off the contemporary Turkish wall tiles and the friezes on the upper half of the walls, which were copied from the Alhambra Palace in Grenada. For appetizers to the main dishes, the hall contains some very fine 16th and 17th century Iznik jugs and 14th century Mameluke and Persian pieces.
The two rooms on the left were the former reception rooms. The first contains a large collection of 17th and 18th century Iznik ceramics, the second pieces from the Umayyad through to the Ottoman period, including the earliest objects in the museum: two eighth century clay Umayyad oil lamps.
The most precious exhibits, though, are housed in the first room across the hall, formerly the dining room. Here are the lovely, gold-painted lustre bowls and other pieces found during the excavations at Fustat. All except one -- which is Abbasid, from the ninth century -- are a thousand years old, dating from the Fatimid era when Islamic art in Egypt reached its pinnacle. All except one have been delicately restored from the fragments found buried in the Fustat dust. Each piece is unique.
The rest of the room contains some cruder blue Fayoum ware, also 11th century, and some exquisite water jar filters.
In what was once the nursery, next to the dining room, is more lustre-ware, this time by the hand of master potter Said El-Sadr, who died in 1986. El-Sadr, who used the old techniques in an astonishingly timeless style, has passed his skills on to new generations of potters.
Up the back stairs -- there was no Empress Eugénie in this Islamic-style gem, so no need for a sweeping Gezira-Palace-type staircase -- are tucked pieces of the prince's furniture and one of the museum's treasures, a disc from the Qaitbay Mosque. Displayed around the upper gallery are beautiful pieces, mostly from Persia, including some Kashan-style tiles and some 14th century Persian imitations of Chinese porcelain. At the end of the gallery, next to the door to Prince Amr Ibrahim's boudoir, are two plates from Andalucia,
The boudoir -- there is no other word for it -- and its adjoining bathroom (with all mod-cons for 1923) are on the rest of the scale of this grand doll's house. It houses Syrian pottery from the 12th century, some alarmingly Greek in shape, some disconcertingly Chinese. I began to feel some of these potters were having jokes at our expense. Who was copying whom? Perhaps potters share a collective wisdom which from time to time strays beyond its cultural boundaries.
I imagined the museum full of visitors, including children, and asked curator Hisham Ahmed if his job was stressful. "Yes," he said. Who does the dusting? I asked. "I do," he replied. And the cleaning? That is done by a company specialising in museum cleaning, with its staff picked on the grounds of not being clumsy.
I breathed a sigh of relief as I stepped outside, partly because Hisham Ahmed himself was taking care of the dusting, partly because it was now dark and cool, but mainly because, any evening, one only has to come here to feast one's eyes on plates and dishes which have, quite miraculously, survived the centuries.
JJ
Practical information
The museum opens from 10am to 1.30pm and from 6 to 10pm. Entrance LE25 for foreigners, LE12 for foreign residents and foreign students, LE5 for Egyptians and LE1 for Egyptian students. Exhibits are clearly and concisely labelled in English and Arabic.
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