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Andrea Fineman
Prof Grigor
FA 39b
26 April 2010
Museum essay- Sackler Museum
Last week, I visited the Sackler Museum at Harvard, a museum which opened in 1985 when the
university decided that their collections of Asian, ancient, Islamic, and Indian art needed a separate space
for study and display. At the museum, which is currently hosting an exhibition of western and modern art
while the Fogg Museum is renovated, Islamic works are displayed in a gallery that they share with Indian
works. Compared to the Asian works adjacent to the Islamic and Indian room, the Islamic collection is
rather small—although the museum does rotate a small number of light-sensitive works, which cannot be
permanently installed in the gallery.
A couple of works that struck my eye were a “Dish with paired fish” from the Ilkhanid dynasty of
Iran, first half of the 14th century. The material was described as “fritware with molded relief and
monochrome glaze” and the dish was a gift of Hagop Kevorkian in 1932. Like many of the works
displayed at the museum, this dish had a highly descriptive wall label that offered historical context. This
dish was influenced by the Chinese wares that circulated west during the period of peace under the
Mongols’ rule. Another work that interested me was a “Star tile with griffins and birds amid Arabesque”
from Kashan, Iran’s Seljuk-Atabeg period in the late 12th-early 13th centuries. The material was described
as “fritware with luster painting over glaze.” This tile was interesting to me because it was a maroon
color—in class, we have mostly seen blue and white decorative tiles. The tile was in the shape of an 8pointed star and the vegetal patterns painted on it looked similar to traditional Chinese patterns. Despite
extensive description of the historical context of the tile and the time of its creation, the wall label didn’t
mention what kind of building this tile was taken from, or even if it was originally a decorative tile on the
wall of a building. I’d guess that it might be difficult to get into a description of what kind of environment
the tile was pulled from without having to explain to skeptical museumgoers as to why the tile was
separated from its context and how it came into the collection of Harvard University.
Perhaps what struck me most about the way the exhibition was arranged had to do with a display
case in the middle of the room that featured Islamic pottery and metalwork alongside Roman and Chinese
artifacts. The museum has separate spaces for east Asian and ancient (Roman and Byzantine) works, and
so it was curious to me that works from these traditions would be included in the Islamic/Indian gallery.
The gallery had many descriptive wall labels providing a lot of historical context for the artworks
displayed, which I found to be quite useful for American museumgoers, who may not be as well-versed in
the history of Asia and the middle east as they are in western history. However, I found it somewhat
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unusual that Chinese and Roman artifacts of a much earlier date would be housed with Islamic works
from the beginning of Islam through the medieval period. Perhaps the display of those artifacts were a
curatorial decision to show similarities or influences among the works. After all, one of the works I
described above was heavily influenced by Chinese examples. However, there was no curatorial text in
the gallery or in the museum’s map and brochure to suggest such a thing.
It might seem a bit strange that the Islamic art must share a gallery with Indian works—a
category of art based on religion mixed with a category based on nationality—but it is strange in the first
place that “Islamic” is the only religion-based designation in the museum. The other galleries are grouped
around a region or civilization, with the wide region of Islamic territories throughout the ages being
lumped together as “Islamic art.” As we’ve discussed in class, the category of “Islamic art” has a long
history in western study. The Indian section of the gallery and the other galleries, some of which feature
east Asian art, are full of statues of the Buddha and other figures from non-Islamic religions. Given the
tone of the rest of the literature at the Sackler Museum, I sort of expected some discussion on the wall
labels or in the brochure about the history of Islamic Art pedagogy.
Before visiting the Sackler Museum, I didn’t expect to find the Islamic collection so close to the
museum entrance and with such informative wall labels. I’d heard that the Museum of Fine Arts’ Islamic
collection was small and uninteresting; I suppose that because the Sackler Museum focuses non-Western
and ancient works, the Islamic pieces are given more of a showcase space. Yet, the part of the collection
on display was rather small, considering the Sackler Museum was built in the 1980s because the nonWestern collection was growing too large to be hosted elsewhere.