The Arab Museum
Near the city gate named the Help of God, on the northeastern border of Cairo, is the old mosque El Hakim. Save its outer walls, which enclose, like the mosques of Touloun and Amer, a large open square, there is not much left of it; but within this square, housed in a temporary building, one finds the collection of Saracenic antiquities which is called the Arab Museum.
This museum is interesting, and it ought to be beautiful. But somehow it is not. The barrack-like walls, sparsely ornamented with relics from the mosques, the straight aisles and glass show-cases, are not inspiring; the fragments of Arabian wood-carving seem to be lamenting their fate; and the only room which is not desolate is the one where old tiles lie in disorder upon the floor, much as they lie on broken marble pavements of the ancient houses which, half ruined and buried in rubbish, still exist in the old quarters. Why one should be so inconsistent as to find no fault with Gizeh, where rows of antiquities torn from their proper places confront us, where show-cases abound, and yet at the same time make an outcry over this poor little morsel at El Hakim, remains a mystery. Possibly it is because the massive statues and the solid little gods of ancient Egypt do not require an appropriate background, as do the delicate fancies of Saracenic taste. However this may be, to some of us the Arab Museum looks as if a New England farmer’s wife had tried her best to make things orderly within its borders, poor soul, in spite of the strangeness of the articles with which she was obliged to deal. It must, however, be added that the museum will not make this impression upon persons who are indifferent to the general aspect of an aisle, or of a series of walls—persons who care only for the articles which adorn them—the lovers of detail, in short. And it is well for all of us to join this class as soon as our feet have crossed the threshold. For we shall be repaid for it. The details are exquisite.
The Arab Museum has been established recently. Every one is grateful to the zeal which has rescued from further injury so many specimens of a vanishing art. One covets a little chest for the Koran which is made of sandal-wood. It is incrusted with arabesques carved in ivory, and has broad hasps and locks of embossed silver. There are many koursis, or small, stool-like tables; one of these has panels of silver filigree, and fretted medallions bearing the name of the Sultan Mohammed ebn Kalaoon, thus showing that it once belonged to the mosque at the Citadel which was built by that Memlook ruler—the mosque whose minarets are ornamented with picturesque bands of emerald-hued porcelain. The illuminated Korans are not here; they are kept in the Public Library in the Street of the Sycamores. Perhaps the most beautiful of the museum’s treasures are the old lamps of Arabian glass. In shape they are vases, as they were simply filled with perfumed oil which carried a floating wick; the colors are usually a pearly background, faintly tinged sometimes by the hue we call ashes of roses; upon this background are ornaments of blue, gold, and red; occasionally these ornaments are Arabic letters forming a name or text. These lamps were made in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries; the glass, which has as marked characteristics of its own as Palissy ware, so that once seen it can never be confounded with any other, has a delicate beauty which is unrivalled.