The Shabtis of the God’s Father, Yuya

This paper re-publishes the shabtis of Yuya, father of Queen Tiye and father-in-law of King Amenhotep III, which are kept at the Egyptian Museum Cairo (CG 51024–34, 51036) and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York (MMA 30.8.56–30.8.58). The latter were excluded from the 1908 publication by J. E. Quibell which lacks adequate images, or even images altogether. 1 It also presents a ‘model’ of three shabtis to represent the entire set, 2 though it is challenging to find two identical shabti texts. 3 The aim of this paper is to study the state of preservation of these shabtis, as it has not been addressed since the discovery of the tomb (KV46) in 1905, 4 especially considering seven shabtis in the Egyptian Museum Cairo were looted on the ‘Friday of Anger’, on 28 January 2011. It presents a full transcription, translation and commentary on the entire set, highlighting the similarities and differentiation between the texts on the shabtis and whether they were made by a single artist or different sculptors. It also investigates the titles of the owner, his name and the facial features.

A Technical Study of a 17th-Century Manuscript of Muḥammad Bin Sulaymān al-Jazūlī’s Dalāʾil al-Khayrāt

In the spring of 2017, the Islamic Art Department, within The Metropolitan Museum of Art (TMMA), acquired an Islamic prayer book, the Dalāʾil al-Khayrāt by Muḥammad bin Sulaymān al-Jazūlī. This paper discusses the findings of a technical study undertaken in the museum’s Sherman Fairchild Center for the Conservation of Works of Art on Paper, focusing on the materials and techniques of one manuscript acquisition specifically, MMA 2017.301. The nature, properties, and characteristics of the text block paper, fiber and pigment identification, chemical compositions, condition assessment, and inherent deterioration mechanisms within the palette are described. The colophon at the end of the manuscript mentions a patron, Sīdī Aḥmad b. Dirham al-Mālikī and identifies its calligrapher as Muḥammad bin Aḥmad bin ʿAbd Al-Raḥmān al-Riyāḥī and confirms its creation date as AH 1035/1625–1626 AD.1

Theorizing Palimpsests

How do we connect the past with the present to address structural problems? While the pursuit of a cause-and-effect past flowing into the present contributes to the understanding of an event or object, how that past is recalled, represented, related, disconnected, suppressed, and/or obfuscated in any given present matters. This article proposes palimpsests as a critical tool for analyzing the many histories of the present. To illustrate this theoretical practice, the article offers a palimpsestic reading of a museumized object, the Nubian Temple of Dendur, now at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. The structural nature of a history of the present comes into view only when one is able to discern multiple histories, presents, categories, and objects layered together within the palimpsest of history.

A silver cross-reliquary and its patroness in twelfth-century rural Asturias

La cruz-relicario de San Salvador de Fuentes es un suntuoso crucifijo hecho principalmente de madera y plata creado a finales del siglo XII para esta importante parroquia del concejo de Villaviciosa, en Asturias. El objeto es propiedad del Metropolitan Museum of Art de Nueva York desde 1917. El objetivo del presente trabajo es el de analizar el simbolismo iconográfico y los usos litúrgicos del crucifijo para luego contextualizar el patronazgo de la comitente del objeto, la noble local Sancha, y la creación de este relicario en la vida religiosa de la zona.

Presentación dosier: Repensar lo camp, investigar lo queer

Han pasado ya 55 años desde la publicación del célebre «Notas sobre lo Camp» en Partisan Review, uno de los textos más conocidos de la filósofa y escritora Susan Sontag. En 1964 el término «camp» era, ante todo, una palabra-código en las subculturas gays de Nueva York y Londres y significaba una actitud irónica de la lectura a contrapelo de películas, novelas y objetos decorativos kitsch y de la cultura de masas (Schreiber, 2018). Desde entonces, la palabra camp ha ido ganando espacio en los ámbitos culturales, hasta el punto de que el Met (The Metropolitan Museum of Art de Nueva York) ha querido conmemorar el aniversario del ensayo de Sontag con una exposición, una gala y un magnífico catálogo con el objetivo de explorar los orígenes de la exuberante estética de lo camp (Bolton et al., 2019).

Arcadio Torres Martín y sus negocios al servicio del tráfico de obras de arte desde España a Estados Unidos

Arcadio Torres Martín fue un destacado anticuario; protagonista del tráfico de obras de arte desde España a EE. UU. en los años anteriores a la Guerra Civil, durante la posguerra y la dictadura de Franco. Estudioso del arte, miembro de la Institución Cultural Tello Téllez de Meneses (Palencia), tomó parte en la venta de obras de arte procedentes de San Andrés de Arroyo (Palencia), las tablas de Juan de Flandes procedentes de San Lázaro de Palencia y el ábside de San Martín de Fuentidueña (Segovia), entre otras. Contó con la confianza de ciertos obispos y gestó un lucrativo negocio de antigüedades en paralelo a su destacada posición social como amante del arte. Acompañó a personajes destacados, como al hispanista W. S. Cook o al embajador estadounidense en España, en sus visitas a monumentos españoles y ofertó obras al Metropolitan Museum of Art de Nueva York.

The colour of time: Stephen Shore’s American Surfaces 1972-2014

In 1972 American photographer Stephen Shore (b. 1947) started the series of chromogenic colour photographs titled American Surfaces (1972-73). In the decades following the initial production of this work and its 1974 acquisition by the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the material qualities and aesthetics of colour photography underwent dramatic changes. This thesis explores the relationship between developments in colour imaging technology and shifts in artistic production from the making of American Surfaces to the present, and explores the increased recognition now given to colour photography as art. In 2016, American Surfaces can be found in a variety of forms including: two publications, numerous recently created digital chromogenic colour exhibition prints, and the original 1972-73 prints at The Met. Focusing on the materiality of this culturally and historically significant body of colour photographic work, this thesis examines three different iterations of American Surfaces from initial production in 1972 to 2014 and their impact on the interpretation of the series.