Ted Gallagher, a self-described attorney “with a strong amateur art historic streak” and a B.A. in Spanish art and history, responds to Hispanic Society’s Koran Deaccessions:
Sadly, the sale by the Hispanic Society of America of unique Koranic manuscripts for fast cash is yet another case of public art treasures being shed in the name of “mission shift.”
The Hispanic Society of America does not overstate the quality of its collections as “unparalleled in their scope and quality outside the Iberian Peninsula, addressing nearly every aspect of culture in Spain.” Perhaps I am wrong, but when invading forces impose Islam as the dominant state religion in a previously Christian country for eight centuries, from A.D. 711 until 1492, and that country’s Christian population is in a continuous war of reconquest to rid the infidels, leading to a fervor of Christianity in the 16th century that manifested itself in the Inquisition, I would say the earliest complete, dated Koran would be well at home in such a museum as a great art-historical treasure. At least the museum founder believed this to be so.
I now live in Inwood, and spent a year’s worth of Saturdays in the neighborhood Hispanic Society library, studying Velázquez, Zurbarán and others of the Sevillian school. The Society is a national treasure, and this loss is heavy on us.
CultureGrrl
Lee Rosenbaum's cultural commentary
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