Antique Dealing and Creative Reuse in Cairo and Damascus 1850-1890

Mercedes Volait, Ph.D. (1993), Aix-Marseille University, is Research Professor at the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) in Paris. She has numerous publications on art, architecture and photography in Modern Egypt, as well as Islamic art collecting in Europe.

"With Antique Dealing and Creative Reuse in Cairo and Damascus 1850–1890, Volait has produced a truly ground-breaking study that should be required reading not only for scholars of Islamic art and architecture, but also for those of broader material culture studies. Its findings require us to approach questions of global material entanglement with greater nuance, even if we do not necessarily arrive at the same interpretive conclusions that Volait does. This is a book that will undoubtedly inspire a new generation of students to emulate the author’s rigorous research methodologies and think more critically about cultural appropriation and exchange.." Ellen Kenney, in: Nineteenth-Century Art Worldwide 21/3 (2022)

• AcknowledgmentsList of IllustrationsIntroduction: Connecting Historiographies, Challenging Assumptions1 Things, People and Places2 Structure of the Book3 A Variety of Sources4 Data Re-Identification5 Revising the Narrative1 Early Shows and Sales of Islamic Antiques in Paris1 Orientalia at the Musée rétrospectif in 18652 Egyptian Architectural Salvage at the Exposition universelle of 18673 The Sale and Display of an Egyptian Collection in 18694 Shifting Trajectories and Contexts2 Expanding Trades in Late Ottoman Cairo and Damascus1 Distinctive Profiles and Iconic Artefacts2 The kursī as Global Commodity3 Market Adjustments3 Conflicted Commodification in Cairo1 Urban and Domestic Reform2 Inducement and Resistance to Commodification3 Contrasting Attitudes4 Fashioning Immersive Displays in Egypt and Beyond1 Atmospheric Interiors for Western Connoisseurs2 The Living Culture of Reuse in Egypt3 The Social Outreach of Revivalism4 Islamic Art as Intrinsically Architectural5 Guise and Disguise Before and During the Tanzimat1 Codification and the Intricacies of Cross-Cultural Dressing in Pre-Tanzimat Times2 Dressing Native in Nineteenth-Century Egypt and Back Home3 Costume for History and Leisure in Painting and Photography4 A Gendered Collecting CultureEpilogue: Diverging Routes1 Bygone Ways of Inhabiting the Past and the World2 Estrangements3 EndurancesReferencesPrimary SourcesWebsitesPrinted SourcesBibliographyIndices Index of Personal NamesIndex of Place NamesGeneral Index