The Metropolitan Museum of Art has now published Islamic Arms and Armor in the Metropolitan Museum of Art by David Alexander, with contributions from Stuart Pyhrr, the former curator, and Will Kwiatkowski, the Oriental languages and epigraphy scholar. While it would be hard to find two better qualified scholars to assist in the preparation of such a catalogue, the book is for the most part written by David Alexander, described rather modestly by the museum’s director, Thomas Campbell, as being “recognised as one of the leading specialists in the study of Islamic arms”. In fact his knowledge in this field is second to none and a new book by him is a pleasure to all who are interested in this subject.
From a collection which exceeds 2,000 Islamic arms, split between the Arms and Armor Department and the Islamic Department, Alexander has selected 126 objects to discuss. These are almost all splendid, top-quality examples of their type, with a tendency to opulence that reflects the fact that the best technology and jewellers arts were employed to grace the personal arms of Near and Middle Eastern rulers and their courtiers. The museum has been adding to its arms and armour holdings for about 125 years and now has some 14,000 items. A number of notable curators with expertise in European arms at the museum such as Bashford Dean, Steven Grancsay, Helmut Nickel and Stuart Pyhrr have presided over the department, and today it has one of the greatest collections in the world. Bashford Dean was extremely interested in Japanese arms, but otherwise non-European/American arms were considered to be of lesser importance though major Islamic arms were acquired, often as a part of European collections: for example 11 superb 15th- and 16th-century helmets, mostly Ottoman, part of the Duc de Dino collection, purchased in 1904.
The museum is deeply indebted to the bequest in 1935 by the collector George Cameron Stone of more than 3,000 Near Eastern and Asian arms, the core of its Islamic and Asian arms and armour holdings. The Stone Bequest includes many important pieces but Stone was particularly interested in typology. For this reason, his collection is very varied in quality as he himself acknowledged by giving the museum full discretion on which items were to be exhibited and which stored. Given the historic, worldwide lack of research relating to Islamic arms, the true significance of what the gift contained has remained unknown and largely unpublished. This is partially remedied today because of the 126 pieces discussed in this book, 63 are from the Stone collection, which here receive proper scholarly publication for the first time. Of course, the selection reflects the author’s preferences. Indonesia has a larger Muslim population than any other country with more than 200 million, but there is no Indonesian kris in this selection (though Islamic Spain at the other end of the Muslim world is represented by a unique Nasrid helmet).
Historically, Britain had the leading arms and armour scholars, but this was dissipated through poor museum management and today the Met leads in this field. It also has a budget that other museums can only envy. Given these advantages one might well ask why the museum has chosen to publish only 126 objects in its first book on Islamic arms rather than the full catalogue. Furthermore, though the museum has acquired notable pieces—it has just spent $2.3m on the Qaitbay armour (Sultan of Egypt, reigned 1468-96) at Rock Island Auction Company—its performance in this area is badly shown up by the activities of private collectors such as Sheikh Al Ard, Sheikh Nassar al Sabah and David Khalili, who over the same period have built large, world-class collections.
The finest collections of Islamic arms in the world are the historic ones such as the Askerî Müze and Topkapi Sarayi in Istanbul, or the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna. American and European museums have failed to respond to the great growth in popular interest in this field, interest that can only grow as the Arabs, Turks, Persians and Muslims from the subcontinent and Southeast Asia become more appreciative of Islamic art, presently a rather elite interest in those regions. The construction of great museums in the Gulf will undoubtedly have an effect on future generations. One does not have to be an Arab or an Orientalist to enjoy objects such as the great Ottoman-period yatagan (knife or short sabre) of around 1525-30, or a bejewelled Mughal dagger, or the late 18th-century guns once owned by Tipu Sultan, the Tiger of Mysore—all of which appear to be lifted straight out of miniature paintings and are as perfect as if they were just made.
David Alexander has produced a fine work of scholarship that is required reading and the Metropolitan Museum of Art has published a beautifully illustrated book (though scholars would find a concordance giving museum reference numbers a useful addition to future publications). Both are to be congratulated, but it is time the whole of the Met’s collection was available online and for the publication of the entire collection in a scholarly catalogue, the essential tasks of a great museum.
• Robert Elgood is an authority on arms of the Near and Middle East and the author of Arms and Armour at the Jaipur Court (2015). His catalogue of the armour in the Mehrangarh Fort, Jodhpur, is in publication
Islamic Arms and Armor in the Metropolitan Museum of Art
David G. Alexander with contributions by Stuart W. Pyhrr and Will Kwiatkowski
Yale University Press in association with the Metropolitan Museum of Art, 348pp, $85 (hb)