Hagop Kevorkian | |
|---|---|
Յակոբ Գէորգեան | |
| Born | 1872 |
| Died | (1962-02-10)February 10, 1962 |
Hagop Kevorkian (Armenian:Յակոբ Գէորգեան; 1872 – 1962) was an Armenian-American archeologist, connoisseur of art, and collector. Originally fromKayseri, and a graduate of the AmericanRobert College inIstanbul, he settled inNew York City in the late 19th century, and was responsible for drawing greater attention to Near Eastern and Islamic artifacts in the United States.
Kevorkian carried out excavations inPersia, in Sultanabad from 1903 and at the medieval city ofRey from around 1907, and assembled an outstanding collection ofOriental art, especiallyIslamic andPersian. He organized the exhibition of Islamic ceramics in London in 1911. The works excavated under his supervision were shown in New York in 1914. Major sales of Islamic pieces from his collection, including lacquer doors and tile panels fromIsfahan, books and paintings, carpets and ceramics, were held in the 1920s at the Anderson Gallery, New York.
In 1929 he acquired at auction theMughal album ofcalligraphy and painting that became known as theKevorkian Album, now renamed "TheShah Jahan Album" by theMetropolitan Museum of Art (rather confusingly, as there is at least one other album called this). The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and theFreer Gallery inWashington, D.C. now hold elements of the Kevorkian Album in their collections.[1] An auction of some of his collection occurred in 1970 at theParke-Bernet Galleries.[2]
In a study of the commodification of Islamic antiques and their entry into museum collections, Mercedes Volait identified Hagop Kevorkian as one of a set of "renowned Armenian art dealers in Paris" which also included Dikran Khan Kelekian (1868-1951), and Antoine Brimo ofAleppo (1872-1862). She argued that Kevorkian and others shifted the trade in Islamic antiquities from Damascus and Cairo to Paris, London and New York, while enabling the entry of objects into collections at theMetropolitan Museum of Art, theLouvre, theVictoria and Albert Museum, and more.[3]
TheBrooklyn Art Museum's Kevorkian Gallery displays theAssyrian reliefs he donated to the institution.
After Kevorkian's death, his foundation established the Kevorkian Chair of Iranian Studies atColumbia University.New York University has a center named after him that houses its Middle Eastern studies department and library.[4] The Hagop Kevorkian Center for Near Eastern Studies at New York University was created in 1966 to foster the interdisciplinary study of the modern and contemporary Middle East and to enhance public understanding of the region.[5]
He was a major benefactor of theUniversity of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology. Ninety-nine objects in the Penn Museum collections came from Kevorkian, either through purchase or, later, donation. He established a fund, the Kevorkian Fund, in the 1950s, which funded the expeditions of theUniversity of Pennsylvania toHasanlu, a site in northwest Iran inhabited from the 6th millennium BC, which Dr. Robert J. Dyson Jr., excavated. After his death the Kevorkian Fund also supported a visiting lectureship in Iranian art and archaeology and an international speaker series at the Penn Museum.[6][7][8]
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