June 5, 2002-March 2, 2003
The Hagop Kevorkian Fund Special Exhibitions Gallery
Some three dozen works from the archives of Ernst Emile Herzfeld (1879-1948), one of the most prominent archaeologists and scholars of ancient Near Eastern and Islamic art of the first half of the 20th century, will go on view this summer at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in Herzfeld in Samarra. The notebooks, sketchbooks, travel journals, artistically accomplished watercolors and ink drawings, site maps, architectural plans, and photographs were all acquired by the Metropolitan in 1943.
The exhibition is made possible by The Hagop Kevorkian Fund.
Focusing on material related to Samarra – the temporary ninth-century capital of the Abbasid caliphs (A.D. 836-892) situated in north central Iraq, along the Tigris River about 125 miles north of Baghdad – the exhibition will highlight one of the most significant Islamic archaeological sites, while offering insight into the character of a pioneering scholar of Islamic art. Stucco panels, as well as glass and ceramic fragments excavated in Samarra by Herzfeld himself, will be shown alongside the archival materials.
Some of the pages in one of Herzfeld's never-published sketchbooks, which he
titled Samarra Malereien (Samarra's Paintings), provide a fascinating corollary to his book Die Malereien von Samarra (The Paintings of Samarra), which was printed in Berlin in 1927. In the sketchbook, for instance, is a watercolor of a wall painting of a quail, showing how it might have looked when first painted centuries ago. In the published work, a plate of the same painting shows the bird in its damaged condition, exactly as it appeared when Herzfeld saw it. In addition, preparatory watercolor drawings of various types – on tracing paper, on heavy paper, and on photographic prints – document the painstaking process whereby Herzfeld participated in the printing of images in Die Malereien von Samarra.
Born in Germany in 1879, Ernst Herzfeld received an architectural degree in 1903 from the Technische Hochschule in Charlottenburg, and earned his doctorate from the University of Berlin in 1907 with a dissertation on Pasargadae – the capital of ancient Persia under Cyrus the Great, located near Persepolis in present-day Iran. In a career that spanned nearly four decades, he participated in 16 excavations and expeditions, gaining incomparable familiarity with all aspects of Near Eastern archaeology, from prehistoric to Islamic times. After directing excavations at Samarra from 1911 to 1913, he wrote landmark studies on dating early Abbasid art. The photographs and watercolors through which he documented Abbasid frescoes are the only record of these works, which have badly deteriorated and almost disappeared in the past decades. While directing an archaeological excavation at Persepolis for the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, Herzfeld decided to travel to London rather than return to Nazi Germany. He settled in the United States in 1936, was appointed professor in the School of Humanistic Studies at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, taught at the Institute of Fine Arts of New York University, and delivered the prestigious Lowell Lectures in Boston. In 1947, while in Cairo, he fell ill and never recovered. He died in Switzerland in 1948.
The late Richard Ettinghausen, who was the head of the Department of Islamic Art at the Metropolitan in the 1970s, once described Herzfeld as "a generous, helpful, charming, and stimulating man. His boundless energy and untiring zest for scholarly work, his loyalty to ideas, and his fine humor inspired great admiration." Commenting on the impact Herzfeld's works on Samarra had on students of Islamic art, the European art historian Charles Rufus Morey wrote that he had left "an indelible record of sound method and inspired presentation which will be a school for future generations."
A variety of educational offerings, including family programs and a lecture and gallery talks for general visitors, will accompany the exhibition.
The Web site of the Metropolitan Museum (www.metmuseum.org) will feature the exhibition.
The exhibition is organized by Stefano Carboni, Associate Curator, Department of Islamic Art. Exhibition design is by Dan Kershaw, Exhibition Designer; graphics are by Constance Norkin, Graphic Designer, and lighting is by Zack Zanolli, Lighting Designer, all of the Museum's Design Department.
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