Times Picayune, LA
July 19 2004

London’s Islamic masterworks start international tour in Washington

By CARL HARTMAN
The Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — A pulpit over 20 feet high, built on orders of a
sultan more than 500 years ago, towers over the exhibits in “Palace
and Mosque,” a collection of 107 Islamic masterworks both royal and
religious that is starting its international tour at the capital’s
National Gallery of Art.

Carvings of religious texts in graceful Arabic script, considered by
many Muslims the highest form of art, line the steps to the rostrum.
London’s Victoria and Albert Museum scoured its 10,000 pieces of
Islamic art to come up with the select sample to share with the
world.

Highly decorative, Muslim religious art does not portray living
figures, human or animal. The second commandment given to Moses
forbids making a likeness of anything in heaven or on earth.

“Islam accepts the Hebrew prophets, and though the 10 commandments
are not part of Islamic doctrine, many of the same ideas can be found
in Muslim religious thinking,” said Tim Stanley, the Victoria and
Albert’s senior curator of Middle East art.

Muslim rulers used religious inscriptions and abstract designs in
decorating their palaces and public buildings, but they also liked
scenes from legend and royal life.

A brightly colored tile recalls an ancient tale from the Persian
“Book of Kings” about an unusual deer hunt. One king, an expert
bowman, rode a camel with his favorite slave girl seated behind him
and playing a harp. To demonstrate his marksmanship, he made a shot
that pinned a deer’s foot to its ear. The slave girl objected.
Enraged, the king flung her from the camel, which trampled her to
death.

Tiles depicting a lovers’ picnic are a signature image of the
National Gallery show. In a painting, another Persian king sees an
Armenian princess discreetly bathing, clothed in a pair of baggy pink
trousers that reach to her calves. He puts his hand to his mouth in
astonishment at her beauty. In another painting, he defends her from
a lion.

It is the second show of Islamic art this season in Washington, which
lacks a major Middle East collection of its own. “Caliphs and Kings”
at the Smithsonian’s Arthur M. Sackler Gallery is largely borrowed
from the Hispanic Society in New York. It limits itself to the 700
years up to 1492 when Muslims, Christians and Jews lived and fought
but often worked, studied and played together in Spain and Portugal.

A section of the National Gallery show explores the relations between
Islamic and other artistic traditions. Middle Eastern carpets made
their appearance in Western painting from the Netherlands to Italy.
Connoisseurs in the Middle East admired Chinese porcelain so much
they developed their own version called fritware, made from sand or
finely ground pebbles.

Brass vessels made in northern Europe were exported to the Middle
East, where some got Islamic decoration and were re-exported to
Europe.

A glass beaker made in Egypt or Syria in the 1200s wound up in a
house called Edenhall in northern England. A legend grew that the
house would be destroyed if the beaker should break. The American
poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow translated a poem about it that ends
with the death of its owner, the collapse of the house and the
shattering of the “Luck of Edenhall.”

In fact, the beaker was lent to the Victoria and Albert in 1926.
shortly before the house was demolished. It’s one of the last items
visitors see at the Washington show, which closes Feb. 6, 2005.
Admission is free.

The sponsor of the Washington exhibition is Prince Bandar bin Sultan,
the Saudi ambassador to the United States.

The tour continues at the Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth, Texas,
April 3-Sept. 4, 2005; the Setagaya Art Museum in Tokyo, Oct. 22-Dec.
11, 2005, and the Millennium Galleries, Sheffield, England, Jan.
14-April 16, 2006.