M. A. Mansoor
Encyclopedia
M. A. Mansoor was an antiquarian who compiled an exquisite collection of Amarna Period
sculptures.
ian parents in Cairo
in 1881. After having graduated from high school, with an excellent knowledge of Arabic
, English and French
, he taught Arabic for some years to foreign officials who occupied principal positions in the Egyptian Government.
As early as his sixteenth year, the history of Ancient Egypt - the discipline of Egyptology
itself - began to fascinate him. He bought books, became an ardent visitor to the Cairo Museum and traveled extensively in Egypt to admire and study the monuments of his ancestors. He learned much about Egyptian art, but was to learn much more later during his long career as an antiquarian. He studied Coptic and began to decipher hieroglyphics
. Soon he also became deeply involved in the study of the art of Mesopotamia
, Greece, Persia and the early Christian and Islamic worlds. He loved the antiquity of the Near and Middle East. He understood and appreciated their cultures and their many forms of art. But his first love and prime interest always remained Egypt. In this he excelled and in later years, he developed a distinguished reputation, which left no doubt as to his integrity and his masterful knowledge of every facet of Ancient Egyptian art and culture.
http://www.mansooramarnacollection.com/album/MA_Mansoor.JPG
in Cairo
, who was one of his students of Arabic. He asked to rent two showcases in the hotel lobby to display and sell to collectors the small collection of ancient Egyptian sculptures, bronzes, amulets, faience
figurines and jewelry that he had acquired during the last few years. The manager was surprised at this request, but after some hesitation he allowed him the showcases on a trial basis for a few months. A year and a half later, the two showcases became a small shop in the main hall of the famous hotel. At that time, Mansoor's business was established. In later years, he opened two more shops in the Semiramis and Continental Hotels and a large gallery across the street from the Cairo Museum.
The purchase and sale of Egyptian and other antiquities was at the time legal, though the Egyptian Department of Antiquities retained the right to inspect all shops and galleries that bought and sold these artifacts. If an important object was found, of which there was no known example in the Cairo Museum, the Department of Antiquities exercised its right to purchase it at a reasonable price. This, however, seldom happened as the Department rarely had the funds to acquire major antiquities.
During his many years in the antique business, M. A. Mansoor met and befriended several of the Egyptologists, antiquarians and collectors of the time. The list of names would be too long to enumerate here, but some should be mentioned: James Quibell
, Ernesto Schiaparelli
, Wilhelm Spiegelberg, Sir Gaston Maspero
, Georg Steindorff
, Percy Newberry
, Wallis Budge, Pierre Lacau
, Arthur Weigall
, Charles Boreux, Howard Carter
, Lord Carnarvon
, Étienne Drioton
, Sami Gabra, Alexandre Varille
, Christiane Desroches Noblecourt
, Ambrose Lansing, William Stevenson Smith, the Khawam brothers, Dikran Kelekian
, William Randolph Hearst
, King Alfonso XIII of Spain
, King Ferdinand I of Bulgaria
, King Prajadhipok
of Siam, King Carol I of Romania
, King Fuad
and his son King Farouk of Egypt
, Levi de Benzion, Achilles Groppi, and Nigel S. Warren. To most of these kings, scholars and gentlemen, M.A. Mansoor sold many important ancient works of art for their collections or museums. Hundreds of these masterpieces of Egyptian art are today in the world's leading museums: the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, the Louvre
, the Vatican Museum, the Metropolitan Museum, The Detroit Museum and The Chicago Oriental Institute, etc., and in many private collections.
In the early 1920s M.A. Mansoor started a collection of rare Amarna
artifacts that stand today to be the Amarna World Largest Private Collection. Inside a Los Angeles bank vault reside 33 pieces from one of the most controversial collections of ancient Egyptian art in history. Virtually unknown to all but a handful of Egyptologists and archaeologists, this collection of antiquities from the Amarna period owned by the Mansoor family has been at the heart of unprecedented dispute between scientists and art historians for over fifty years.
Each side's opinion is diametrically opposed to the other. The ones say the Mansoor collection is authentic because the patina and the crust on the statues are genuine? The others say it's not because the stone is not right or man made stone? Who is right? The original players are now either aging or dead. Nevertheless, the controversy lives on. Although two experts only condemned it as a fake - out of the 28 who valued the collection since the end of the 1940s, the moral authority of these two made numerous followers over the years to the extent that today quite many Egyptologists, art historians or museums are convinced - most of the time without having seen the pieces at all - that the collection is a forgery.
Egyptologists in favor of the Mansoor Amarna Collection: On Record
Christiane Desroches Noblecourt
Ph.D. 08/17/1981
Inspecteur General des Musees, Chef du
Département des Antiquites Egyptiennes
du Musée du Louvre
Étienne Drioton
Ph.D. 01/03/1959
Director General of The Antiquities Department,
Egypt. Then Director, Centre National de la
Recherche Scientifique, Sorbonne.Member of the
Arts Council of French Museums. Conservator in
Chief of the Louvre Museum and Professor at the
Collège de France
. ( 6 )
Sami Gabra, Ph.D. 02/23/1959
Former Professor of Ancient History of the
University of Cairo; Former Director of Excavations
of the University of Cairo at Touna; Former
Director of the Institute of Egyptology of the
University of Cairo and Director of Higher Studies
of the Coptic Institute.
Andreina L. Becker-Colonna, Ph.D. 1975
Professor Emeritus, Curator Emeritus of the
Sutro-Egyptian Collection, [San Francisco State
University], California
'Egyptologists Against the Collection': On Record
Prof. Dr. Hans Wolfgang Muller 02/15/1960
Professor of Egyptology, Munich
Egyptologists Against the Collection "Not on Record but via Proxy"
Prof Dietrich Wildung Egyptian Museum of Berlin
Prof Jean Claude Grenier [Universite Paul Valéry Montpellier 3] France
Until the late 1930s, only a few scientific tests to study ancient works of art had been developed. The experts and antiquarians had to rely on their own knowledge of the styles of the many periods of Egyptian art. The microscope, and even the simple magnifying glass, often showed the careful observer the patination, erosion, or dendritic formations (the passing of time action, and the effect of burial in wet soil or sand on the surface of the object under study).
After Howard Carter discovered Tutankhamon's tomb in 1922, tourists and art lovers from all over the world began to visit Egypt in ever increasing numbers. Mansoor's business flourished; there was a constant demand for antiquities. The stories he told of these years were fabulous. These were the years when he made the acquaintance of eminent persons in the field of Egyptology who were to become his teachers, advisers, friends and customers. But above all, he was serving the better interest of Egyptology.
Amarna Period
The Amarna Period was an era of Egyptian history during the latter half of the Eighteenth Dynasty when the royal residence of the pharaoh and his queen was shifted to Akhetaten in what is now modern-day Amarna...
sculptures.
Early life and studies
He was born to Coptic Orthodox EgyptEgypt
Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...
ian parents in Cairo
Cairo
Cairo , is the capital of Egypt and the largest city in the Arab world and Africa, and the 16th largest metropolitan area in the world. Nicknamed "The City of a Thousand Minarets" for its preponderance of Islamic architecture, Cairo has long been a centre of the region's political and cultural life...
in 1881. After having graduated from high school, with an excellent knowledge of Arabic
Arabic language
Arabic is a name applied to the descendants of the Classical Arabic language of the 6th century AD, used most prominently in the Quran, the Islamic Holy Book...
, English and French
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
, he taught Arabic for some years to foreign officials who occupied principal positions in the Egyptian Government.
As early as his sixteenth year, the history of Ancient Egypt - the discipline of Egyptology
Egyptology
Egyptology is the study of ancient Egyptian history, language, literature, religion, and art from the 5th millennium BC until the end of its native religious practices in the AD 4th century. A practitioner of the discipline is an “Egyptologist”...
itself - began to fascinate him. He bought books, became an ardent visitor to the Cairo Museum and traveled extensively in Egypt to admire and study the monuments of his ancestors. He learned much about Egyptian art, but was to learn much more later during his long career as an antiquarian. He studied Coptic and began to decipher hieroglyphics
Egyptian hieroglyphs
Egyptian hieroglyphs were a formal writing system used by the ancient Egyptians that combined logographic and alphabetic elements. Egyptians used cursive hieroglyphs for religious literature on papyrus and wood...
. Soon he also became deeply involved in the study of the art of Mesopotamia
Mesopotamia
Mesopotamia is a toponym for the area of the Tigris–Euphrates river system, largely corresponding to modern-day Iraq, northeastern Syria, southeastern Turkey and southwestern Iran.Widely considered to be the cradle of civilization, Bronze Age Mesopotamia included Sumer and the...
, Greece, Persia and the early Christian and Islamic worlds. He loved the antiquity of the Near and Middle East. He understood and appreciated their cultures and their many forms of art. But his first love and prime interest always remained Egypt. In this he excelled and in later years, he developed a distinguished reputation, which left no doubt as to his integrity and his masterful knowledge of every facet of Ancient Egyptian art and culture.
http://www.mansooramarnacollection.com/album/MA_Mansoor.JPG
Career
In October 1904, he approached the Swiss manager of Shepheard's HotelShepheard's Hotel
Shepheard's Hotel was the leading hotel in Cairo and one of the most celebrated hotels in the world between the middle of the 19th century and 1952....
in Cairo
Cairo
Cairo , is the capital of Egypt and the largest city in the Arab world and Africa, and the 16th largest metropolitan area in the world. Nicknamed "The City of a Thousand Minarets" for its preponderance of Islamic architecture, Cairo has long been a centre of the region's political and cultural life...
, who was one of his students of Arabic. He asked to rent two showcases in the hotel lobby to display and sell to collectors the small collection of ancient Egyptian sculptures, bronzes, amulets, faience
Faience
Faience or faïence is the conventional name in English for fine tin-glazed pottery on a delicate pale buff earthenware body, originally associated with Faenza in northern Italy. The invention of a white pottery glaze suitable for painted decoration, by the addition of an oxide of tin to the slip...
figurines and jewelry that he had acquired during the last few years. The manager was surprised at this request, but after some hesitation he allowed him the showcases on a trial basis for a few months. A year and a half later, the two showcases became a small shop in the main hall of the famous hotel. At that time, Mansoor's business was established. In later years, he opened two more shops in the Semiramis and Continental Hotels and a large gallery across the street from the Cairo Museum.
The purchase and sale of Egyptian and other antiquities was at the time legal, though the Egyptian Department of Antiquities retained the right to inspect all shops and galleries that bought and sold these artifacts. If an important object was found, of which there was no known example in the Cairo Museum, the Department of Antiquities exercised its right to purchase it at a reasonable price. This, however, seldom happened as the Department rarely had the funds to acquire major antiquities.
During his many years in the antique business, M. A. Mansoor met and befriended several of the Egyptologists, antiquarians and collectors of the time. The list of names would be too long to enumerate here, but some should be mentioned: James Quibell
James E. Quibell
James Edward Quibell was a British Egyptologist, born in Newport, Shropshire.He was educated at Adams' Grammar School and Christ Church, Oxford...
, Ernesto Schiaparelli
Ernesto Schiaparelli
Ernesto Schiaparelli was an Italian Egyptologist, born in Occhieppo Inferiore , who found Queen Nefertari's tomb in Deir el-Medina in the Valley of the Queens and excavated the TT8 tomb of the royal architect Kha , found intact and displayed in toto in Turin...
, Wilhelm Spiegelberg, Sir Gaston Maspero
Gaston Maspero
Gaston Camille Charles Maspero was a French Egyptologist.-Life:Gaston Maspero was born in Paris to parents of Lombard origin. While at school he showed a special taste for history, and by the age of fourteen he was already interested in hieroglyphic writing...
, Georg Steindorff
Georg Steindorff
Georg Steindorff was a German Egyptologist.-Life:Georg Steindorff was a graduate of the Egyptology seminars of the University of Göttingen. He earned a doctorate in 1884 with a linguistic dissertation on Coptic noun forms...
, Percy Newberry
Percy Newberry
Percy Edward Newberry was a British Egyptologist.-Early life:Newberry was born in Islington, London in 1869. His mother was named Caroline Wyatt, and his father, Henry James Newberry, was a woollen warehouseman. Newberry developed a strong attachment to botany in childhood and was also an...
, Wallis Budge, Pierre Lacau
Pierre Lacau
Pierre Lacau was a French Egyptologist and philologist. He served as Egypt's director of antiquities from 1914 until 1936, and oversaw the 1922 discovery of the tomb of Tutankhamun in the Valley of the Kings by Howard Carter.-Early life:Pierre Lacau was born in the French commune of...
, Arthur Weigall
Arthur Weigall
Arthur Edward Pearse Brome Weigall was an English Egyptologist, stage designer, journalist and author whose works span the whole range from histories of Ancient Egypt through historical biographies, guide-books, popular novels, screenplays and lyrics.- Biography :Arthur Weigall was born in the...
, Charles Boreux, Howard Carter
Howard Carter
Howard Carter may refer to:* Howard Carter , English archaeologist who discovered Tutankhamun's tomb* Howard Carter , American basketball player...
, Lord Carnarvon
George Herbert, 5th Earl of Carnarvon
George Edward Stanhope Molyneux Herbert, 5th Earl of Carnarvon was an English aristocrat best known as the financial backer of the search for and the excavation of Tutankhamun's tomb in the Valley of the Kings.-Biography:...
, Étienne Drioton
Etienne Drioton
Étienne Drioton was a French Egyptologist, archaeologist, and Catholic canon.-Biography:...
, Sami Gabra, Alexandre Varille
Alexandre Varille
Alexandre Varille was a French Egyptologist.-Life:From a cultured family, he studied Economics and Letters. During his studies he met Victor Loret, his Egyptology professor at the University of Lyon, and followed him in his devotion to Egyptian philology and archaeology...
, Christiane Desroches Noblecourt
Christiane Desroches Noblecourt
Christiane Desroches Noblecourt was a French Egyptologist. She was the author of many books on Egyptian art and history and was also known for her role in the preservation of the Nubian temples from flooding caused by the Aswan Dam.-Background:She was born Christiane Desroches on November 17...
, Ambrose Lansing, William Stevenson Smith, the Khawam brothers, Dikran Kelekian
Dikran Kelekian
Dikran Kelekian , a notable collector and dealer of Islamic art. The son of an Armenian banker from Kayseri, Dikran Kelekian and his brother Kevork set themselves up in the antiquities business in Istanbul in 1892. The next year Dikiran came to the United States as a commissioner for the Persian...
, William Randolph Hearst
William Randolph Hearst
William Randolph Hearst was an American business magnate and leading newspaper publisher. Hearst entered the publishing business in 1887, after taking control of The San Francisco Examiner from his father...
, King Alfonso XIII of Spain
Alfonso XIII of Spain
Alfonso XIII was King of Spain from 1886 until 1931. His mother, Maria Christina of Austria, was appointed regent during his minority...
, King Ferdinand I of Bulgaria
Ferdinand I of Bulgaria
Ferdinand , born Ferdinand Maximilian Karl Leopold Maria of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha-Koháry, was the ruler of Bulgaria from 1887 to 1918, first as knyaz and later as tsar...
, King Prajadhipok
Prajadhipok
Phra Bat Somdet Phra Poramintharamaha Prajadhipok Phra Pok Klao Chao Yu Hua , or Rama VII was the seventh monarch of Siam under the House of Chakri. He was the last absolute monarch and the first constitutional monarch of the country. His reign was a turbulent time for Siam due to huge political...
of Siam, King Carol I of Romania
Carol I of Romania
Carol I , born Prince Karl of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen was reigning prince and then King of Romania from 1866 to 1914. He was elected prince of Romania on 20 April 1866 following the overthrow of Alexandru Ioan Cuza by a palace coup...
, King Fuad
Fuad I of Egypt
Fuad I was the Sultan and later King of Egypt and Sudan, Sovereign of Nubia, Kordofan, and Darfur. The ninth ruler of Egypt and Sudan from the Muhammad Ali Dynasty, he became Sultan of Egypt and Sudan in 1917, succeeding his elder brother Sultan Hussein Kamel...
and his son King Farouk of Egypt
Farouk of Egypt
Farouk I of Egypt , was the tenth ruler from the Muhammad Ali Dynasty and the penultimate King of Egypt and Sudan, succeeding his father, Fuad I, in 1936....
, Levi de Benzion, Achilles Groppi, and Nigel S. Warren. To most of these kings, scholars and gentlemen, M.A. Mansoor sold many important ancient works of art for their collections or museums. Hundreds of these masterpieces of Egyptian art are today in the world's leading museums: the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, the Louvre
Louvre
The Musée du Louvre – in English, the Louvre Museum or simply the Louvre – is one of the world's largest museums, the most visited art museum in the world and a historic monument. A central landmark of Paris, it is located on the Right Bank of the Seine in the 1st arrondissement...
, the Vatican Museum, the Metropolitan Museum, The Detroit Museum and The Chicago Oriental Institute, etc., and in many private collections.
In the early 1920s M.A. Mansoor started a collection of rare Amarna
Amarna
Amarna is an extensive Egyptian archaeological site that represents the remains of the capital city newly–established and built by the Pharaoh Akhenaten of the late Eighteenth Dynasty , and abandoned shortly afterwards...
artifacts that stand today to be the Amarna World Largest Private Collection. Inside a Los Angeles bank vault reside 33 pieces from one of the most controversial collections of ancient Egyptian art in history. Virtually unknown to all but a handful of Egyptologists and archaeologists, this collection of antiquities from the Amarna period owned by the Mansoor family has been at the heart of unprecedented dispute between scientists and art historians for over fifty years.
Each side's opinion is diametrically opposed to the other. The ones say the Mansoor collection is authentic because the patina and the crust on the statues are genuine? The others say it's not because the stone is not right or man made stone? Who is right? The original players are now either aging or dead. Nevertheless, the controversy lives on. Although two experts only condemned it as a fake - out of the 28 who valued the collection since the end of the 1940s, the moral authority of these two made numerous followers over the years to the extent that today quite many Egyptologists, art historians or museums are convinced - most of the time without having seen the pieces at all - that the collection is a forgery.
Egyptologists in favor of the Mansoor Amarna Collection: On Record
Christiane Desroches Noblecourt
Christiane Desroches Noblecourt
Christiane Desroches Noblecourt was a French Egyptologist. She was the author of many books on Egyptian art and history and was also known for her role in the preservation of the Nubian temples from flooding caused by the Aswan Dam.-Background:She was born Christiane Desroches on November 17...
Ph.D. 08/17/1981
Inspecteur General des Musees, Chef du
Département des Antiquites Egyptiennes
du Musée du Louvre
Étienne Drioton
Etienne Drioton
Étienne Drioton was a French Egyptologist, archaeologist, and Catholic canon.-Biography:...
Ph.D. 01/03/1959
Director General of The Antiquities Department,
Egypt. Then Director, Centre National de la
Recherche Scientifique, Sorbonne.Member of the
Arts Council of French Museums. Conservator in
Chief of the Louvre Museum and Professor at the
Collège de France
Collège de France
The Collège de France is a higher education and research establishment located in Paris, France, in the 5th arrondissement, or Latin Quarter, across the street from the historical campus of La Sorbonne at the intersection of Rue Saint-Jacques and Rue des Écoles...
. ( 6 )
Sami Gabra, Ph.D. 02/23/1959
Former Professor of Ancient History of the
University of Cairo; Former Director of Excavations
of the University of Cairo at Touna; Former
Director of the Institute of Egyptology of the
University of Cairo and Director of Higher Studies
of the Coptic Institute.
Andreina L. Becker-Colonna, Ph.D. 1975
Professor Emeritus, Curator Emeritus of the
Sutro-Egyptian Collection, [San Francisco State
University], California
'Egyptologists Against the Collection': On Record
Prof. Dr. Hans Wolfgang Muller 02/15/1960
Professor of Egyptology, Munich
Egyptologists Against the Collection "Not on Record but via Proxy"
Prof Dietrich Wildung Egyptian Museum of Berlin
Egyptian Museum of Berlin
The Egyptian Museum of Berlin is home to one of the world's most important collections of Ancient Egyptian artifacts.The collection is part of the Neues Museum.-History:...
Prof Jean Claude Grenier [Universite Paul Valéry Montpellier 3] France
Methods
Mansoor carefully studied every object he possessed, and, when in doubt, never hesitated to consult the many experts and connoisseurs he knew. Every object was dated to the best of his knowledge.Until the late 1930s, only a few scientific tests to study ancient works of art had been developed. The experts and antiquarians had to rely on their own knowledge of the styles of the many periods of Egyptian art. The microscope, and even the simple magnifying glass, often showed the careful observer the patination, erosion, or dendritic formations (the passing of time action, and the effect of burial in wet soil or sand on the surface of the object under study).
Ethic
M.A. Mansoor strongly believed that every work of ancient art had a soul of its own. "It will speak to you", he used to say. "It has a feeling of its own, and it will tell you if it was made by an artist who lived, thought and was part of a bygone society." His intuition, guided by his knowledge, was phenomenal. He had that innate talent to recognize the ancient Egyptian works of art.After Howard Carter discovered Tutankhamon's tomb in 1922, tourists and art lovers from all over the world began to visit Egypt in ever increasing numbers. Mansoor's business flourished; there was a constant demand for antiquities. The stories he told of these years were fabulous. These were the years when he made the acquaintance of eminent persons in the field of Egyptology who were to become his teachers, advisers, friends and customers. But above all, he was serving the better interest of Egyptology.
External links
- The M. A. Mansoor Amarna Collection - Virtual museum gallery of Amarna artifacts from the Louvre, the Denver Art Museum and San Francisco State University