Photo: Smithsonian Institute
Sitting on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., is the Freer Gallery. It’s the first Smithsonian Institute museum to focus on art and home to a number of paintings by James Whistler, including his famous “Peacock Room” — a turquoise and gold dining room designed by Whistler for a London couple.
The Freer also houses one of the most renowned collections of art from the Islamic world anywhere.
“It is considered one of the best in the world,” says Massumeh Farhad, Chief Curator of the Freer Gallery of Art and the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery as well as the Freer’s Curator of the Arts of the Islamic World. “People come from all over the world to see some of the works in the Freer.”
Among those works are ceramics decorated with calligraphy, pages of centuries old Qur’ans and huge apricot-colored glassware covered in delicate enamel work.
“Enameling is an extremely difficult technique,” she says. “What you do is you first make your vessel and then to add the decoration — the enameling — you have to re-heat the vessel. So you have to be very careful because one degree here or there and the whole thing would turn into a glob of glass.”
What’s striking about the Freer’s collection, in addition to the large size of several of its pieces, is the lack of overtly religious pieces. Farhad is careful to state the art exhibited in the collection is from the “Islamic World” and represents particular cultures, not the religion of Islam itself. It’s one of the reasons the collection is called “Arts of the Islamic World” and not simply Islamic art -– it’s a subtle distinction, but an important one Farhad says.
“We don’t want this to be confused, let’s say, with Hindu art or Buddhist art because this is not religious art,” she says. “There are works that certainly relate to Islam but many of the other pieces don’t.”
Not only are they not religious pieces, but they are pieces from a particular stratum of society. Almost all the pieces in the Freer’s collection belonged to members of the elite upper classes in Muslim societies.
That’s not to say the pieces weren’t used. In fact, more than a few show signs of the wear and tear of daily use, but they certainly weren’t objects most people would have had in their homes.
One of the most striking examples of that is a huge brass and silver canteen found at the back of the collection. It’s exhibited with a Chinese ceramic canteen that was clearly inspired by it or one like it. The silver-inlayed canteen sitting in the Freer is the only one known to exist.
It’s among Farhad’s favorite pieces.
“It’s the one object that when I first came here as a curator I went into storage to see it, actually, not under glass,” she says.
Even through glass it’s impressive. It’s slightly smaller than a small bass drum, and every inch of the canteen is covered in a design of some sort. There are calligraphy and birds — things common to art from the Islamic world.
Featured right in the middle of one side is an image of Mary and the Baby Jesus.
“In the very center there’s an image of the Virgin and Christ,” she says. “And then you have other scenes — there is the birth, there’s the entry into Jerusalem and there’s the baptism.”
On the other side of the canteen are images of jousting and Catholic priests. Farhad says they know the canteen was probably made in the Iraqi city of Mosul in the 13th Century, but they don’t know who it was made for or why.
About 800,000 visitors go through the gallery each year and Farhad says the Freer is working to get most of its collection up on its website so more people can see it. There are a few works already there. You can view them at the Freer Gallery website.