Islamic art in Qatar

My local market has a very good second-hand bookstall, where I came across the guidebook to the Museum of Islamic Art in Doha, Qatar.

The building was designed by I.M Pei (probably best known for the Louvre's Glass Pyramid) and its faceted geometric shape,  which changes with the sun, captures the essence of Islamic art.  His inspiration was the ninth century mosque of Ahmed Ibn Tulun in Cairo:
 "If one could find the heart of Islamic architecture, might it not lie in the desert, severe and simple in its design, where sunlight brings forms to life?"

The Doha Museum's interior is more obviously spectacular, with its play on circles, octagons, stars and squares, key motifs in Islamic art, decorating objects and interiors.

The atrium, with double stairway and decorated chandelier

Diamond patterns and facets reflect the interior light  

These changing and intersecting patterns in the architecture are seen more clearly in the interior design and decoration and are repeated in the objects in the Museum's collection.

Detail of inlaid cabinet, with stars and foliage, India, 16th-17th century

Slip decorated plate with Kufic calligraphy, Samarqand or Nishapur,  10th century.*

"Foolish is the person who misses his chance and afterwards reproaches fate."  attrib. Yahya ibn Ziyad

The interior designer, in collaboration with I.M. Pei, was Jean-Michel Wilmotte, who used dark grey porphyry and bronzed exotic wood - Brazilian louro faya,  creating display galleries where the Museum's treasures appear suspended in space and light. 

Treasures of the Museum include an inlaid brass candlestick from Shiraz, an enamelled glass mosque lamp, and the Rothschild silk carpet, probably made in Kashan in the reign of Shah Tahmasp (1524-76).

Many of these and other objects are inscribed with dedications to their owners or, as around the mosque lamps, with verses from the Qur'an;  sophisticated carpet designs are closely related to the designs of book covers, for the highest art after architecture in the Islamic canon is the art of the book or calligraphy, which conveys the word of God.

Book binding, Herat, Afghanistan, 15th century

Kufic Qur'an, Abbasid or Fatimid, N. Africa or Near East, 10th century

Mamluk Qur'an, Egypt or Syria 14th century

Light and shadows on the Museum of Islamic Art, Doha, Qatar

(This and other images from mia.org.qa/collections)

*These epigraphic plates from Samarqand and Nishapur are among my favourites, with their spare designs and stylised inscriptions, often blessings or proverbs, providing convivial grace-notes to a meal.
There are good collections of these and other beguiling Islamic arts found in museums such as the Metropolitan New York, the British Museum and the V&A, London, or the Louvre, Paris. 

Saving Wedgwood 7: 100 Objects - Time for Tea

Object 92  in Neil Macgregor's groundbreaking BBC Radio 4 series of 2010  ("A History of the World in 100 Objects") was a Wedgwood Victorian teaset,  a teapot, sugar bowl and cream jug, made about 1840-45.  He then describes the complex historical  processes involved in bringing the tea, sugar and fresh milk of the tea-drinking ritual to the British mass-market of the 19th century.

A History of the World in 100 Objects  Neil Macgregor  © Trustees of the British Museum and BBC Radio

Wedgwood's contribution was to provide the practical and pleasing-to-use tea services with which the ritual was enjoyed.  He developed earthenware which was heatproof, smooth, washable, and affordable and mass produced.  The tradition of fine design for tablewares continues to this day (e.g. see Martin Hunt's "'Plato" tea service in the V&A).

 Wedgwood teapot, rosso antico, c. 1805-1815
© Victoria and Albert Museum

Bone china teapot designed by Victor Skellern,  Wedgwood's Art Director, c.1937.

© Victoria and Albert Museum

Wedgwood jasper dip teapot, early 19th century, with reliefs designed by Elizabeth, Lady Templetown 1785-90
© Victoria & Albert Museum

Wedgwood earthenware teaset, Falling leaves pattern, 1939
© Victoria & Albert Museum

By 1800, tea was the new national drink.  Celina Fox (quoted by Neil Macgregor) explains the impetus it received in the 1840s.  "Temperance was huge.  Drink for the Victorians was a very big issue.  The desire to have a working population that was sober and industrious was very strong, and there was a great deal of propaganda to that effect.  Sobriety was tied in with dissent, Methodism and so on, and tea really was the drink of choice.  So it's happening on two levels: dissent and having an upright working population which gets to the factory on time and isn't drunk out of its mind, which always seems to be a British problem, and on top of that you have the ritual of afternoon tea.  So tea drinking really takes off in a massive way in the nineteenth century."

The Arts of Industry in the Age of Enlightenment  Celina Fox

Wedgwood, Dr. Darwin's pattern service,  blue jasper dip, c. 1820

© Victoria &  Albert Museum

Historians and curators like Macgregor and Fox depend on the availability of detailed archives like the Wedgwood Collection for their expert research, which is then shared with a much wider public.

www.savewedgwood.org