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Al-Ahram Weekly 22 - 28 April 1999 Issue No. 426 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly 22 - 28 April 1999 Issue No. 426
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Culture Profile Special Travel Sports People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters Private Kuwaiti treasures on show
By Nevine El-Aref
This unique private collection of Islamic art belongs to a Kuwaiti emir, Sheikh Nasser Sabah Al-Ahmed Al-Sabah, and his wife. They started the collection over 20 years ago and with it established the Islamic Antiquities Exhibition of Kuwait.
A manuscript depicting the beaker water clock, dated December 1315
"It now contains more than 20,000 objects that represent treasures of the Islamic world from Spain to India and chronologically covers a wide range of works," said Hessa Sabah Al-Salem Al-Sabah, the wife of Sheikh Nasser and owner and director of the exhibition. "The building was burned down during the brutal 1990 Iraqi aggression after the collection had been handed back to us, and stored in boxes and crates," she added. Then began the exhibition's tour of the world.
In celebrating a week of cultural relations between Kuwait and Egypt entitled 'Egypt in the heart of Kuwait', Farouk Hosni, the minister of culture, and Youssef Semette, Kuwait's minister of information, opened the first Kuwaiti exhibition of Islamic art in one of the halls of the Mohamed Mahmoud Khalil Museum in Giza.
"This exhibition is the first of its kind, not only in Egypt but in all Arab and Islamic countries," said Hosni, who explained that the exhibits included a wide range of Islamic artefacts produced between the seventh and the eighteenth centuries in different cities throughout the Islamic world.
Some of the works were lavish gifts for important caliphs, sultans and shahs. Others were commissioned by ambitious princes, emirs and merchants. But the bulk of the collection came from anonymous owners or patrons whose tastes reflected the cultural traditions of their societies.
"This remarkable exhibition summarises the history of Islamic art and its relationship with Islamic rulers as well as their important role in the development of art," said Mohamed Ghoneim, first under-secretary at the Ministry of Culture. The display includes 118 objects arranged in four chronological groupings. Each section illustrates the styles and techniques identified with specific periods.
Farouk Hosni, the minister of culture, inspects the newly opened Kuwaiti exhibition of Islamic art
Among artefacts from the early Islamic era is a collection of five folios of illustrated Qur'anic manuscripts originating from Tunisia and dating from 622 to 1050AD. Two are fragments of a volume transcribed in a style known as broken cursive or curvilinear kufic. The folio features a chapter title rendered in gold and accentuated by a palm. The same motif appears in illumination elsewhere in the manuscript. The other two are written in kufic script on parchment and transcribed in gold. The fifth folio, also in kufic, is on parchment and features large illuminated medallions indicating the beginning of verses and clusters of six gold roundels marking the end.
Also dating to the early Islamic era are coloured ceramic bowls, plates and jars decorated with script, wheel-cut designs, and drawings of plants and animals. Mosaic glasses, a brass ewer, a wooden panel carved in relief with a pair of gazelles flanking a central palmate, mould-blown glass vessels embellished with fluting, ribbing and lining, rock crystal bottles carved with reliefs and with inscriptions bestowing blessings. All these items were made in Iraq, Iran, Egypt, and Syria.
Ahmed Nawar, head of the museum department at the Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA), pointed out two major innovations used in the production of the ceramic items on display in this section. "The first is the use of cobalt to paint blue designs on pottery and the second is the use of silver and copper oxides to produce lustre-ware," he said, adding that these two techniques along with the use of Arabic inscriptions and floral scrolls in the decoration of objects had a lasting impact on the development of Islamic art.
The second section of the exhibition covers the Abassid era from 1050 to 1250AD. This comprises a collection of gold from Spain, Morocco, Syria and Egypt, including a pair of gold earrings with both faces enamelled and inscribed with Qur'anic verses, and a pair of gold bracelets made from hollow, hinged tubes with triangular clasps. The workmanship is remarkable: each bracelet bears a series of bands with birds or inscriptions.
An open-work filigree gold rosette made of round, flat and twisted gold wires is especially noteworthy as is a rare type of gold pendant inlaid with garnets and emeralds. It is easy to wax lyrical about exhibits such as a decorated silver spoon and fork inlaid with black alloy and a brass pen box decorated with Arabic inscriptions, floral scrolls, geometric roundels and inlaid with silver and gold.
One of the rarest objects on display in this section is a manuscript containing four treatises on the theory, construction and use of the astrolabe. The folio describes that part of the instrument representing the southern hemisphere. The brass astrolabe itself is a very beautiful piece and features carving showing the direction of the qibla from Asfahan to Mecca.
"This is the classical period of Islamic art, and despite its political turbulence with waves of invaders including Seljuk Turks and Crusaders, it was a period of great economic prosperity and artistic achievement," said Hosni. "Qur'anic texts were written in angular and cursive scripts and elaborately decorated. Potters devised a new type of ware called 'mina' in which pigments were affixed during several firings. This technique permitted the use of colours and detailed compositions," he explained. A similar effect was used by metalworkers who inlaid their brassware with gold, silver and copper to produce intricate designs.
The third section, devoted to the era of emirates and states in which princes and provincial governors competed with sultans in sponsoring outstanding works of art and architecture, contains the most lavish pieces. On display are glazed and lustrous ceramic jars, bronze mirrors encircled with benedictory inscriptions, free-blown glass perfume sprinklers fashioned from purple glass and combed with white threads or enamelled and gilded, coloured ceramic bowls painted in blue, white and black and decorated with palm leaves, animals, and figures of heroes from Islamic tales.
In the third section are a unique pair of carved wooden doors and a remarkable 14th century Syrian manuscript showing the beaker water clock from the Automata of Al-Jazari, in which an individual with a large pen is seated on a bench above the clock, marking the hours. There is also a page of a medieval book dating to the second quarter of the fourteenth century in Egypt, depicting a bear and a monkey. It is a fable, intended to teach moral values to rulers.
Finally, the fourth and last section of the exhibition is devoted to the age of empires from 1500 to 1800 AD. "The art of books of this era reached new heights with superior workmanship manifested in book bindings, calligraphy, illuminations and illustrations," said Nawar, adding that similar technical achievements were made in ceramics and metalwork.
The collection includes bottles, bowls, and plates with lustrous paintings, or coloured in mustard yellow, with underglaze in blue, white, and brown-red. Star-shaped tiles inscribed with Qur'anic verses used in the decoration of mosques and minarets are included, while other exhibits include paintings used to cover walls and grounds in private residences, one of which portrays a youth under an arch. There is also metalwork on display, including weapons of war and helmets.
Among all these treasures, so diverse in character and from so many sources, one particular piece of jewellery stands out. This is a gold pendant from India, dating from the eighteenth century, shaped like a bird of prey and set with rubies, emeralds, diamonds and rock crystal. Large pearls are suspended from its beak and tail.
Photos Amr Gamal
