Eighteenth-century Persianate Albums Made in India: Audiences – Artists – Patrons and Collectors (Berlin, 15-17 Sept 2021, CEST)
The workshop will be held as a blended format with a mix of online and on-site presentations at the Museum of Asian Art and the Museum of Islamic Art in Berlin. You are cordially invited to join all presentations via webex. Admission Free – All Welcome
To join the event online please click here (Time listed is CEST – Central European Summer Time):
DAY 1 (15 Sept): 3.00 pm – 6.20 pm
https://spk-berlin.webex.com/spk-berlin-en/j.php?MTID=m5f7033da94677f7711ac04861f1e7e0a
DAY 2 (16 Sept): 9.30 am – 4.30 pm
https://spk-berlin.webex.com/spk-berlin-en/j.php?MTID=mc7494ed5d79c95f339d9d5a148e8554f
DAY 3 (17 Sept): 9.45 am – 3.30 pm
https://spk-berlin.webex.com/spk-berlin-en/j.php?MTID=m6893774ec81bc112d573c4ccf307a34e
If you wish to attend the workshop in person, please note that the number of seats at both venues is limited. Advance registration for on-site attendance is essential: f.weis@smb.spk-berlin.de
The workshop will address the role of Indo-Persianate albums (muraqqaʿs) that were assembled for or collected by the Mughal governors of Awadh (Uttar Pradesh), Shujaʿ al-Daula (r. 1754–1775) and his successor, Asaf al-Daula (r. 1775-1797), as well as other local elites in Bengal and Bihar. Europeans also participated in the creation and consumption of albums, as patrons and collectors. In 1882, the Prussian State acquired a group of twenty albums from the twelfth Duke of Hamilton; so far, these artworks have received little study. Eight of them belonged to the Scottish surgeon and interpreter Archibald Swinton (1731–1804) and ten to the Franco-Swiss engineer-architect Antoine Louis Henri Polier (1741–1795) – both were Company officers deeply acquainted with Indo-Persian aristocratic culture. Many more albums are linked to well-known European figures, such as the Governor-General of Bengal Warren Hastings (1732–1818) and the French Company officer (and special agent to Shujaʿ al-Daula in Faizabad) Jean-Baptiste-Joseph Gentil (1726–1799). Numerous interrelated questions arise from the study of this material, concerning audiences, artists, patrons, collectors and their wish to produce and preserve knowledge; these questions are to be discussed in this workshop.
PROGRAMME
Wednesday, 15 September 2021: Museum für Asiatische Kunst (staff entrance), Takustrasse 40
3.00 pm (CEST)
Raffael Gadebusch (Berlin): Welcome
3.15 pm (CEST)
Friederike Weis (Berlin): Welcome and Introduction
Session I: Polier’s Albums and Manuscripts: Contents and Contexts – Chair: Friederike Weis
3.50 pm (CEST)
Susan Stronge (London): Collecting the Mughal Past
4.30 pm Break
5.00 pm (CEST)
Malini Roy (London): Blurred Lines: Looking at the Paintings by the Artist Mihr Chand and Determining the Boundaries between Innovation, Imitation or Intentional ‘Duplication’
5.40 pm (CEST)
Firuza Abdullaeva-Melville (Cambridge): Three Highlights of Polier’s Collection from Cambridge: Treasures or Leftovers
Thursday, 16 September 2021: Museum für Asiatische Kunst (staff entrance), Takustrasse 40
Session II: Patrons, Collectors and Compilation Strategies – Chair: Susan Stronge
9.30 am (CEST)
Emily Hannam (Windsor): Fit for a King? Two Late Mughal Albums in the Royal Library at Windsor Castle
10.10 am (CEST)
Axel Langer (Zurich): Obvious or Hidden Narratives in the Large Clive Album
10.50 am Break
11.20 am (CEST)
J.P. Losty (Sussex): Archibald Swinton’s Indian Paintings and Albums – an Analysis
12.00 pm Lunch Time
Session III: Recurrent Themes and Tropes in Indo-Persianate Albums – Chair: Laura Parodi
1.20 pm (CEST)
Katherine Butler Schofield (London): Performing Women in the Polier and Plowden Albums: Pursuing Khanum Jan
2.00 pm (CEST)
Molly Aitken (New York): Intoxicating Friendships: Figuring Classical Indian Aesthetic Regimes in Mughal Album Painting
2.40 pm Break
3.10 pm (CEST)
Yuthika Sharma (Edinburgh): Topography as Mughal Utopia? Polier’s ‘Garden Series’ and Artistic Exchange in 18th-century Periphery-Centre Imagination
3.50 pm (CEST)
Anastassiia Botchkareva (New York): Tropes and Outliers: Tracing Patterns of Iconography in the Polier Albums
Friday, 17 September 2021: Archäologisches Zentrum (Administrative Offices of the Museum für Islamische Kunst), Brugsch-Pascha-Saal, Geschwister-Scholl-Strasse 2-6
9.45 am (CEST)
Stefan Weber / Deniz Erduman-Çalış (Berlin): Welcome
Session IV: Calligraphy in the Berlin Albums: Historicism and Contemporary Mughal Masters – Chair: Axel Langer
10.00 am (CEST)
Claus-Peter Haase (Berlin): The Calligraphies of the 16th-17th Centuries in the Berlin Albums – Reflections on their Origins and Purpose in a Muraqqaʿ
10.40 am (CEST)
Will Kwiatkowski (Berlin): Expanding the Canon – Mir Muhammad Husayn ʿAta Khan and the Polier Albums
11.15 am Break
Session V: Indian Muraqqaʿs Collected by Europeans: Networks and Relationships – Chair: Deniz Erduman-Çalış
11.50 am (CEST)
Laura Parodi (Genova): Allegory and Verisimilitude in Later Indian Albums
12.30 pm (CEST)
Isabelle Imbert (Manchester): Like a Garden Bedecked: Floral Margins in 18th-century Awadhi Albums Produced for European Patrons
1.10 pm Lunch Time
2.20 pm (CEST)
Yael Rice (Amherst, MA): The London Market for South Asian Muraqqaʿs and the Hastings Albums
3.00 pm Final discussion
Organiser: Friederike Weis (Museum für Asiatische Kunst, Takustrasse 40, 14195 Berlin) – The event is funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG).