Agence France Presse — English
April 14, 2006 Friday 5:32 PM GMT

Rare books go on display in Istanbul

ISTANBUL, April 14 2006

Some 75 rare books from the collection of late Armenian oil magnate
and art connoisseur Calouste Sarkis Gulbenkian will go on display in
Istanbul’s Sakip Sabanci museum on Saturday.

The highlight of the exhibition is a 241-page prayer book that was
printed on parchment in Italy at the end of the 13th century, the
museum said, adding that its colours had withstood age well.

The books from the Gulbenkian collection will form part of an
exhibition titled “The art of the book in the East and the West” that
runs until May 28.

It features antique books from France, Iran, Japan and the Ottoman
empire, but also more recent rare books such as illustrated copies of
the works of Victor Hugo and Honore de Balzac.

“We have never before mounted an exhibition of a such a combination
of books from the East and the West. We wanted it to serve as a
symbolic bridge between the two cultures of our founder,” said the
president of the board of the Gulbenkian Foundation, Emilio Rui
Vilar.

Gulbenkian was born to Armenian parents in Istanbul. He spent many
years in Portugal and died in 1955 in Lisbon, which is home to the
Gulbenkian Museum.