Who: Mercedes Volait, CNRS, Institut national d’histoire de l’art; support from Duke University History Department, Libraries, Department of Art, Art History, and Visual Studies, Middle Eastern Studies Center (DUMESC), The Franklin Humanities Institute, and the Manuscript Migration Lab.
What: Book Talk on Antique Dealing and Creative Reuse in Cairo and Damascus 1850 – 1890: Intercultural Engagements with Architecture and Craft in the Age of Travel and Reform by Mercedes Volait as the 12th volume of Brill Publishing’s “Leiden Studies in Islam and Society”.
When: Tuesday, April 5th, 2022; 5:00 PM
Where: Thomas Room, Lilly Library, Duke University
Description: “The commodification of Islamic antiques intensified during the Tanzimat period, an age of domestic reform and increased European interference in the Ottoman Empire. The book examines the social lives and collective biographies of typical objects moving from Cairo and Damascus to Paris, London, and beyond; it uncovers the range of agencies and subjectivities involved in the trade of architectural salvage and historic handicraft from the two capitals, and traces their afterlife in private interiors, through creative reuse, in Egypt, Europe and the US. By devoting attention to both vernacular and global engagements with Middle Eastern tangible heritage, the volume invites to look anew at Orientalism in art and interior design, the canon of Islamic architecture and the translocation of historic works of art.”