Reading Islamic arts in Berlin: the case of the Mshatta façade

The interwar period was a formative phase for the development of Islamic art history in Germany. The Islamic department on the Berlin Museum Island was a main site of this process, which was deeply intertwined with political constellations, both domestic and considering Germany’s relation to the Middle East: the transition from the Kaiserreich to the Weimar Republic and then to National Socialism had an impact on the way art was interpreted and presented to changing audiences. At the same time, the global political shifts of this period overturned international relations – and thus also on practices of archaeology, acquisition and collecting.
This paper takes its cue from the example of the Mshatta façade, an early Umayyad architectural fragment, which had been brought to Berlin before WWI, and remained a pièce de résistance for the Islamic department. Between 1918 and 1933, discussions around the concrete placement of the façade in the museum, but also about its interpretation as an artwork, mirror the political developments of the time. It is therefore on the one hand a striking example for the interrelation between modern history and the epistemic conditions of Islamic art historiography. On the other hand, the uncontested status of the Mshatta façade and its importance for late antique and early Islamic ornament demonstrates how the agency of an artwork remains a constant value throughout shifting political and epistemic frameworks.