Dubai: A new exhibition opening on June 18, will celebrate the 19th century rediscovery of authentic Islamic ornament and design by Western scholars and artists.
Reconnecting East and West: Islamic Ornament in 19th-Century Works from the Dahesh Museum of Art and Syracuse University, will be held at the Dubai Community Theatre and Arts Centre (DUCTAC), Mall of the Emirates, until July 18.
The exhibition is the first collaboration between Dahesh Museum of Art and the Syracuse University to be shown in the UAE.
Future generations
"The Dahesh Museum of Art is proud to share its collection with audiences in Dubai for many reasons. First, and foremost, we have expertise in the field through the scholarly exhibitions we have produced over the years.
Second, Dr Dahesh, who assembled the original collection, was a resident of Beirut and understood the value of collecting 19th Century Orientalist art for future generations in the East as well as the West," Amira Zahid, one of the Dahesh Museum's founding trustees, said.
The 45 works that comprise "Reconnecting East and West" reveal the diversity of Islamic ornamental vocabulary and its application to a wide variety of buildings, books, textiles and objects.
Original volumes
Featured in the exhibition are a selection of spectacular colour lithographs from Emile Prisse d'Avenne's magisterial Islamic Art in Cairo, along with three original volumes that make up this compendium; individual plates from Owen Jones's influential Grammar of Ornament and Alhambra are also shown alongside the original publications.
In addition, there are paintings by Orientalist artists Rudolf Ernst, Ludwig Deutsch, and Federico Ballesio and prints after Jean-Leon Gerome that reflect the ubiquity of these motifs in Orientalist art.
