HARVARD’S ARTHUR M. SACKLER MUSEUM RECEIVES GIFT OF IMPORTANT INDIAN AND ISLAMIC WORKS

Over 300 Works from the Collection of Stuart Cary Welch, Curator Emeritus, Islamic and Later Indian Art, Arthur M. Sackler Museum, and Former Senior Lecturer, Harvard University

Works Come from One of the Finest Collections of Its Kind in Private Hands and Continue the Long Tradition of Harvard Alumni and Scholars Furthering the Collections of the Art Museums

Cambridge, MA – November 19, 1999. James Cuno, the Elizabeth and John Moors Cabot Director of the Harvard University Art Museums, announced today that the Harvard’s Arthur M. Sackler Museum has been given more than 300 works from the Stuart Cary Welch Collection of Indian and Islamic Art, considered one of the finest and most comprehensive private collections of this type of material. With this gift, the Museum’s collection of Islamic and later Indian art now stands as one of the foremost in the United States. This gift also continues the long tradition of Harvard alumni and scholars expanding the collections of the Art Museums through gifts.

"We are deeply moved by Cary’s generosity. He is widely regarded as the leading connoisseur of Turko-Indo-Iranian art in the West, as well as being a legendary teacher and influential curator and author," said Cuno. "For more than forty years, Cary has shared his knowledge of and love for the arts of Islam and India with students, colleagues, friends, and the museum-going public. His gift will ensure that Harvard students for many generations to come have the opportunity to study and be inspired by the arts of these cultures."

The gift comprises over 300 works of art from India, Iran, and Turkey, dating from the fifteenth to the nineteenth centuries. Over 250 of the works are from India, including 190 drawings and paintings from Rajasthan. Combined with the 1995 gift of more than seventy Indian paintings from the Welch collection and earlier gifts from John Kenneth Galbraith and John Goelet, the Harvard University Art Museums now has one of the most important collections of Indian drawings and paintings in the country. The emphasis on drawings in the gift is unusual and parallels the focus of the Art Museums’ renowned collection of Western drawings, strengthened recently by the gift of 110 seventeenth-century Dutch drawings from the Maida and George Abrams Collection.

In making this gift, Mr. Welch stated: "Students at Harvard have the immense privilege, as I did in my student days, of examining and sometimes handling collections unrivaled by those in other university art museums. Eyes and brains are nurtured by close contact with the arts of the entire world. And Harvard’s great art museums offer precisely that opportunity to students. As a curator, I most loved planning and carrying out exhibitions; as well, teaching has always been deeply satisfying to me. Showing and explaining works of art to enthusiastic, motivated students at Harvard was a central part of my experience there. For me, sharing a work of art with another person doubles its quality and meaning."

Among the most important works are two folios from a famous Safavid manuscript, the Divan (Collected Works) of Hafiz, ca. 1525; one painting is the Scandal in a Mosque, signed by the great master Shaykh Zada. Other noteworthy works are a painting (ca. 1735) by the Kotah Master that depicts a moment during a hunt when Bhoj Singh lets fly a lethal arrow into the side of a fierce lion; an ink drawing with a charcoal underdrawing (1740) by Shaykh Taju, showing five views of an elephant combat; a drawing attributed to Abu’l Hasan portraying an event in the Padshahnama (a text documenting the reign of the Mughal emperor Shah Jahan) in which Shah Jahan as a prince saves Anup Rai from the jaws of a lion; and a full-length portrait painted around 1650 by the artist Hashim of an aged Shah Jahan, surrounded by a border with allegorical symbols invoking the emperor’s power and nobility.

Mary McWilliams, Norma Jean Calderwood Associate Curator of Islamic and Later Indian Art, noted: "As a teaching institution, we are thrilled to be able to offer this range of superb drawings to students, professors, and visiting scholars. This gift’s initial studies, preparatory sketches, drawings pricked for transfer, and highly finished tinted drawings enable us to illuminate the artistic process itself."

Welch is closely identified with Harvard, where he was an undergraduate and graduate student, teacher and curator, and author of many important scholarly publications. Through this gift and previous gifts, his legacy as a collector will also be part of Harvard University and the Art Museums. Welch joins other great Harvard alumni and scholars, such as Charles Loeser, Grenville Winthrop, Paul Sachs, Eric Schroeder, and Philip Hofer, whose gifts to the Art Museums have helped build its distinguished collections.

Welch received his A.B. from Harvard in 1950 and completed his graduate study in ancient art at Harvard in 1952–54. He served as honorary assistant keeper of Islamic art for the Fogg Art Museum in 1956–70 and honorary keeper of Islamic art in 1970–76. He was appointed curator of Islamic and later Indian art in 1976, a position he held until his retirement in 1995. He also served as senior lecturer in fine arts, Department of Fine Arts, Harvard University, from the mid-1970s until his retirement. In 1995, he was appointed curator emeritus, Islamic and Later Indian art, Sackler Museum. Concurrent with his work at Harvard, he also headed the department of Islamic art at The Metropolitan Museum of Art (1979–87).

Welch’s scholarship has served as the basis for many groundbreaking exhibitions and accompanying publications, including The Art of Mughal India, the first exhibition devoted to Mughal art (Asia Society, 1963), and Wonders of the Age: Masterpieces of Early Safavid Painting, 1501-1576, the first catalogue devoted to Safavid art (Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University Art Museums; British Museum; and National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1979). His groundbreaking scholarship in the fields of Iranian art as well as the arts of the Mughals, Deccanis, Rajputs, and Ottomans, among many others, has advanced a greater understanding and appreciation of each area, and his publications are among the principal literature in these fields. Other notable publications include Gods, Kings, and Tigers: The Art of Kotah (essayist and editor of the catalogue published in conjunction with exhibition of same title, Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Harvard University Art Museums and Asia Society, 1997); India: Art and Culture, 1300–1900 (exhibition catalogue, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1985), and The Houghton Shahnameh (2 vols., Harvard University Press, 1981, with Martin Dickson), a seminal work on Turkman and Safavid art.

Welch has been teacher and mentor to many distinguished museum community leaders and scholars, including Milo Beach (director, Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, Washington, DC), Sheila Canby (keeper of Islamic art, British Museum, London), Massumeh Farhad (associate curator of Islamic art, Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, Washington, DC), Thomas Lentz (deputy director, Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, Washington, DC), Glenn Lowry (director, The Museum of Modern Art), Marianna Shreve Simpson (curator of Islamic art, The Walters Art Gallery, Baltimore), Julia Bailey (assistant curator of Islamic art, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston), and Daniel Walker (curator of Islamic art, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York).

Harvard University Art Museums
The Harvard University Art Museums is one of the leading arts institutions in the United States and the world. It is distinguished by the range and depth of its collections, its groundbreaking exhibitions, and the original research of its staff. For more than a century, it has been the nation’s premier training ground for museum professionals and scholars and is renowned for its seminal and ongoing role in the development of the discipline of art history in this country.

The three Harvard University art museums—the Fogg Art Museum, the Busch-Reisinger Museum, and the Arthur M. Sackler Museum—are all outstanding institutions in their respective fields. The Fogg also houses the Straus Center for Conservation, a leader in the research and development of scientific and technology-based analysis of art. The 150,000 objects in the Art Museums’ collections range in date from ancient times to the present and come from Europe, North America, North Africa, the Middle East, South Asia, East Asia, and Southeast Asia. Each Museum also has an active program of special exhibitions that promotes new scholarship in its areas of focus.

As an integral component of the Harvard University community, the Art Museums serve as a resource for all students, adding a special dimension to their areas of study and to their lives at and after Harvard. The Museums welcome the public to experience the collections and special exhibitions as well as to enjoy lectures, symposia, and other programs.

The collections are divided among ten curatorial areas (Ancient and Byzantine Art and Numismatics; Architecture and Design; Asian Art; Busch-Reisinger Museum; Drawings; Islamic and Later Indian Art; Modern and Contemporary Art; Paintings, Sculpture and Decorative Arts; Prints; and Photographs) and are encyclopedic within those arenas. Developed with an emphasis on their value for teaching and research, these holdings are a uniquely broad and rich resource that are continually enhanced through gifts and acquisitions. Together, the holdings of the three museums comprise one of the finest university art collections in the world, with resources rivaling those of many major public museums.