DOHA: An international conference on the Orientalist Museum’s exhibition “The Art of Travel: Bartholomäus Schachman (1559-1614)” will be held on Sunday from 11am to 2pm at the Museum of Islamic Art Auditorium.
Distinguished scholars from art history, cultural studies, literature, architectural history, and Ottoman history, as well as museum professionals from Poland, Austria and Qatar will explore the subject of 16th century Orientalism in art and history, examining the interconnections of the Ottoman Empire and Poland, as well as addressing broader questions of cultural exchange.
QMA’s Orientalist Museum opened “The Art of Travel: Bartholomäus Schachman (1559-1614)” exhibition on November 15, at the AlRiwaq exhibition space, located next to the Museum of Islamic Art. Curated by Dr Olga Nefedova, Director of the Orientalist Museum, The Art of Travel is an exhibition of Orientalist art and history, shaped and formed around Bartholomäus Schachman’s travel album. On view until February 11, next year, the exhibition provides visitors with a fascinating and vivid view back to the 16th century Danzig (Gdansk) and the Ottoman Empire, and the life of Bartholomäus Schachman.
Dr Olga Nefedova will open the conference giving a presentation on the life and times of Bartholomäus Schachman, mayor of Danzig between 1605 and 1614. Schachman travelled through Europe, the Middle East and North Africa between 1588 and 1589 and commissioned an album, dated 1590, depicting the costumes and people of the Ottoman Empire, together with scenes of everyday life, festivals and ceremonies.
Among the other speakers at the conference are Sara Al Mana, researcher at the Orientalist Museum, who will discuss the thematic analysis of the images in the Schachman album, and Prof Dr Tadeusz Majda, Professor Ordinarius of the Faculty of Oriental Studies, Warsaw University, who will discuss an album of Turkish costumes and genre scenes of 1590, on view at the Jagiellonian Library in Cracow, and make some comparisons with the Schachman album.
Writer and translator Dr Harald Lacom will give a presentation on the common practices of captivity and slavery throughout the Ottoman Empire – a subject that also appears in the Schachman album; while Magdalena Mielnik from the National Museum of Gdansk will examine the world of Ottomans through the eyes of Martin Gruneweg, another Gdansker who travelled in the same direction.
The Peninsula
