FEATURE

GIFTS OF THE SULTAN

The
Art of
Giving
The exchange of gifts, passing between rulers, diplomats and religious
institutions, is known to have been practised in the Middle East for 3,5OQ years.
'Gifts of the Sultan', an exhibition at the Museum of Islamic Art in Doha,
examines this socio-political ritual through an array of objects

WRITER WILLIAM GREENWOOD

mong the earliest results of the
civilising process among mankind,'
wTote the Yale professor Franz
Rosenthal in 1964, 'has been
the replacement of force by persuasion as
a means for the individual to achieve his
desires. And the form of persuasion whose
effectiveness was no doubt obvious from the
very beginning was the giving of gifts.''
The Museum of Islamic Art (MIA) in
Doha is staging 'Gifts of the Sultan: The Arts
of Giving at the Islamic Courts' (18 March-2
July), the first exhibition devoted to gift giving
in the Islamic world. The show has been put
together by Dr Linda Komaroff, curator of
Islamic art at the Los Angeles County Museum
of Art (LACMA), which hosted the exhibition
last summer before it travelled to Houston.
The Qatari leg of its journey sees over 220
items from almost 40 separate collections
brought together to illustrate the ways in
which services were repaid, festivals were
celebrated, embassies were welcomed and
shrines were glorified between the 8th and
19th centuries - over an area stretching across
the entire Muslim world and beyond.
Gift giving is a natural means of looking
at art history. Brigitte Buettner has noted that
'without objects there would be no gifts,'^ and
many of the most spectacular and historically
significant examples of Islamic art were
originally given as gifts.^ The offering of
presents and donations is a tradition of great
antiquity in the Middle East, referred to in
texts as early as the Middle Assyrian period
(c. 1400 BC-934 BC), carried on during the
Sassanid Empire (224-651) and throughout
the era of Islamic rule. Gifts, then, can serve
to illuminate not only the art but the history,
culture and politics of a great swathe of the
Old World, and this exhibition explores the
complex links between that tradition and the
art of diplomacy, religion and human relations.
Beyond this, it introduces a novel way of
looking at Islamic art through the symbiotic
relation between artistic production and
patronage centred around the giving and
receiving of gifts.
To bring some order to what could
otherwise be an overwhelmingly large and
varied group of items, Dr Komaroff has chosen
to divide the pieces on display into three
generally defined groups. The first consists of
state and diplomatic gifts, given in order to
seal treaties, affirm alliances and display the
greatness of one potentate before another.
Often intended for royal treasuries, these

138 APOLLO MARCH 2012

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FEATURE
GIFTS OF THE SULTAN

pieces are often ofthe most luxe materials and
excessive in scale. The next type of gift is the
personal which, while often associated with
royalty and the court, is usually on a more
human, intimate scale than its diplomatic
equivalents. Finally, there are the pious dona-
tions, items endowed to religious institutions.
These can include moveable objects, such as
Qur'ans, mosque lamps and furniture, as well
as more immobile objects like architectural
elements and funerary monuments.
Two items, made hundreds of years and
miles apart, illustrate the nature of the state
gift. Although a live elephant, such as that
sent to Charlemagne by the legendary Abbasid
Caliph Harun al-Rashid in 802, was the most
impressive gift of this sort, the tusks of these
animals were also highly prized. An ivory
oliphant, or hunting horn, probably made
in Sicily or southern Italy in the mid-12th
century, typifies the luxurious nature of the
state gift, both in the fineness of its figurative
and calligraphic carvings and the way in
which it uses such a large amount of this
extremely precious material. Its counterpart
is a portrait ofthe Qajar ruler Fath 'Ali Shah
(1772-1834; Fig. 4), which makes its first
appearance in Doha, alongside other pieces
from Russia which were unable to travel to the
US. Paintings such as this (and this one was
actually presented to Napoleon by the Persian
ambassador in 1807) were often sent as gifts
to foreign leaders in order to create a suitably
imperial aura around the ruling dynasty.
A more personal type of present is
represented by a Mughal cameo ofthe 17th
century. It shows the Emperor Jahangir's
These groups are not restrictive when it
comes to the display and, indeed, it is clear
that many of the objects cross between them. A
case in point is the enamelled Mamluk mosque
lamp (Fig. 2), most likely made in Syria or
Egypt around the middle ofthe 14th century
and intended to help light the enormous
Sultan Hasan religious complex in Cairo.
Much glass of this type, which was created
for endowment to religious institutions, was
removed from this setting in the mid-19th
century, as it became popular with European
collectors. The lamp on display here may have
taken the same route, as it is said to have been
given as a gift by the Egyptian khédive Ismail
(1830-79) to the Belgian king Leopold II
(1835-1909). Here, one can clearly see the
slippage from religious to secular, from pious
to state, and from mosque to palace.
The 'biographies' of some pieces, their
various 'lives' and the routes they have taken,
illuminate history as clearly as any text. Who
could fail to be intrigued by a gold rose-water
flask decorated with precious stones, looted 1 Portrait of Sinai Shah Kamlu,
from Delhi by the Iranian ruler Nadir Shah Ambassador of Shah Abbas I
to Emperor Rudolf II, 1604
(1688-1747) in 1739 and then sent as part of Esaye le Gillon
a diplomatic package to St Petersburg, accomp- Bodycolour on vellum, 15.5x10.7cm
Museum of Islamic Art, Doha
anied by 14 elephants? Who would not be
Photo; Christie's Images Ltd
touched by an album of outstanding painting
and calligraphy, presented by the doomed 2 Mosque lamp, c. 1354-61
Egypt or Syria
Mughal prince Dara Shikoh (1615-59) to his Enamelled and gilded glass, ht 38cm
wife Nadira Banu Begam, whom he addresses Museu Calouste Gulbenkian, Lisbon
as 'my dearest friend' on the inscribed flyleaf? 3 Cameo, 17th century
Who could remain unimpressed by the Ottoman India
sultan Abdiilhamid II's (1842-1918; deposed Sardonyx with enamelled gold
setting, 6.7X7.2cm
1909) gift to the German Kaiser Wilhelm II Bibliothèque nationale de France,
(1859-1941; abdicated 1918) ofthe entire Cabinet de Médailles, Paris

(1569-1627) son. Prince Khurram, killing façade of an 8th-century palace in the Jordanian 4 Portrait of Fath 'AH Shah, c. 1800-06,
a lion with a sword (Fig. 3). The gifting of desert, here represented by a solitary, richly Iran, Tehran

cameos at the Mughal court was a custom
adopted from visiting Europeans, who gave
them to members of the court. In this case,
the event shown is a factual one, in which the
prince killed a lion which was attacking his
hunting partner. This piece, which would have
been worn hung around the neck, is a work
ofthe highest quality, as evidenced by the
inscription amal-ikanatamm Cworkofthe
supreme engraver').
carved rosette?
Another important aspect of the items
on display is the way in which they show the
presentation to be almost as important as the
gift itself. Ambassadors were often a key part
5 Portrait of Mehdi Quii Bey, Ambassador
of the message, and this is exemplified by
two handsome portraits drawn from the MIA
collection, which will appear as part ofthe
show for the first time in Doha. Painted in
Prague between 1604 and 1605, they show
Oil on canvas, 225.3x129.9cm
Musée du Louvre, Paris, on loan from
the Musée National de Versailles
Photo: © Réunion des Musées
Nationaux; Art Resource, NY;
Hervé Lewandowski
of Shah Abbas I to Emperor Rudolf II,
1604-05
Esaye le Gillon
Bodycolour on vellum, 15.5x10.7cm
Museum of Islamic Art, Doha
Photo: Christie's Images Ltd

140 APOLLO MARCH 2012

 FEATURE
GIFTS OF THE SULTAN

the richly robed and impressively turbanned

Persian ambassadors Sinai Shah Kamlu and
Mehdi Quh Bey (Figs. 1 and 5). Sent by Shah
Abbas I (1571-1629) to the court of the Holy
Roman Emperor Rudolf II (1552-1612), their
aim was to secure a military alliance between
the two sides, enabling them to fence in their
common enemy, the Ottoman Empire. The
formal, even ceremonial, aspect of these
portraits is indicated by the Persian inscrip-
tions below the pictures, each written in the
sitter's own hand. Mehdi Ouli Bey's reads: 'I
wrote these few words...to commemorate my
visit to His Majesty, the King whose dignity is
like Jam, the Emperor Rudolf, as the ambass-
ador from the King of Iran, and TUran, Shah
Abbas....' Images such as these enable us to
better understand the processes of diplomatic
exchange, both inter- and extra-Islamic, as
well as the way in which people, or represen-
tations of them, could be as value-laden as
more obviously functional or decorative items.
Similarly, pictures of things received are
essential for today's viewer to comprehend the
full range of things given, especially where
these were perishables, whether these were

MARCH 2012 APOLLO 141

FEATURE
GIFTS OF THE SULTAN

6 Timm Receiving Gifts from the

Egyptian Ambassadors, 1436
Ink, opaque watercolour and gold
on paper, 33.6X 24.5cm
Worcester Art Museum, Massachusetts

1/ FranzRosemhal.'GiftsandBribes:
ephemera, such as incense or sweetmeats, I ht Muslim View', Proceedings ofthe
or alive, such as animals. A perfect example
108(Aprill964),p.l35.
of the latter is the outstanding double-page 2/ Brigitte Buettner.'Past Presents:
composition depicting the great Central Asian New Year's Gifts at the ValoJs Courts.
ai. 1400'. The Art Bulletin, vol, 83. no,
conqueror Timur (1336-1405) receiving gifts, 4lDeceinber2001).p.598.
most remarkable of which is a giraffe, from 3/ LindaKomaroff.Gi/tJo/íheSuífan:
I'heArts of Giving at the Islamic Courts,
Mamluk ambassadors in 1404 (Fig. 6). The New Haven and London, 201J. p. 20.
4 / Erik Ringmar.'Audience for a
pages come from a copy of the Zafarnama, Giraffe: Europt'iin Expansionism and
an account of Timur's conquests made for his I he Quest for ihe Exotic", Jouma/o/
WorldHistory, voL 17. no. 4
grandson Sultan Ibrahim in Shiraz, in 1436; (December 2006), p. 377.

the book which originally contained them is 5 / Marcel Mauss. 77ieGi/t (trans.
W.D. Halls), London and NewYoric.
now dispersed, and these two sheets are in 2002. p. 105.

fact from separate collections, one in the UK

and the other in the US. That this unlikely
juxtaposition of the Turco-Mongol warlord
and this peculiar creature, 'the very epitome
of the exotic','' ever actually took place is
attested to by the eyewitness account of
another long-distance traveller, the Castilian
ambassador Ruy Gonzales de Clavijo. He
writes that in 1404, a Mamluk delegation
arrived in the city of Khoy, in north-western
Iran, with presents for Timur which included
not only the aforementioned giraffe, but also
six ostriches.
Giraffes appear throughout this exhi-
bition, as do lions, tigers, zebras, Dürer's
celebrated Rhinoceros (a woodcut of 1515),
and less exotic (although perhaps more
practical) horses. The last of these is featured
in the section of the show which brings
together contemporary artists with roots in
Saudi Arabia, Iran, Pakistan and Turkey, to
create works which reference the exhibition's
themes. Günseli Kato's (b. 1956) Horse Power as well as a range of educational programmes theorist ofthe gift: 'It is by opposing reason
(2011) borrows the outline of an elaborately and other events. to feeling, by pitting the will to peace against
caparisoned horse from miniature painting, Whether from sultan to sultan, husband sudden outbursts of insanity.. .that peoples
and transforms it into an elaborate cut-out to wife, or ruler to mosque, the gifts in this succeed in substituting alliance, gifts and
worked in gold leaf. Elsewhere, Ahmed Mater show are united by a particular concept: they trade for war, isolation and stagnation.'^ @
(b. 1979), an artist and doctor, uses decorative were intended to act as bonds in a chain of
borders associated with illuminated manu- human connections, whether at the grand William Greenwood is curator of metalwork
scripts to frame human X-rays; Sadegh heights of power or the smaller scale of and co-ordinating curator of Gifts ofthe
Tirafkan (b. 1965) creates an installation personal affection. In the Islamic courts, at Sultan'at the Museum of Islamic Art, Doha.
inspired by commemorative shrines in Iran; least, it would appear that gifts, rather than
and Shahzia Sikander (b. 1969) presents the war, were the continuation of policy by other 'Gifts ofthe Sultan: The Arts of Giving at
poem as gift, in the form of verses from the means, and on the social level they acted as the Islamic Courts' opens at the Museum
great Urdu poet Faiz Ahmed Faiz (1911-84). a way of diffusing tension. Perhaps the final of Islamic Art in Doha on 18 March, and
Beyond the exhibition itself, there is also a word is best left to French sociologist Marcel continues until 2 July. For further details,
new bilingual (Arabic and English) catalogue. Mauss (1872-1950), arguably the greatest go to www.mia.org.qa

142 APOLLO MARCH 2012

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