Artists as collectors of Islamic Art, 1850-1910

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The aim of this project is to generate a new understanding of patterns of collecting and interpreting the arts of the near east through the first cross-cultural comparative study of Ottoman and Orientalist artists as collectors in the 19th century. By mapping transcultural networks of artists, dealers and collectors traversing Ottoman, Russian, Polish, French and British cultures, this study reveals international exchanges that have been occluded by studies of Orientalism narrowly focused around single national histories. This project reveals the myriad ways treasures from the Islamic world were being transformed in the 19th century from their prior local religious and cultural functions into exoticism in the West and cultural patrimony in the East.