Hagop Kevorkian ( hy, Յակոբ Գեւորգեան; 1872 – 1962) was an Armenian-American archeologist, connoisseur of art, and collector. Originally from

Kayseri Kayseri (; el, Καισάρεια) is a large Industrialisation, industrialised List of cities in Turkey, city in Central Anatolia, Turkey, and the capital of Kayseri Province, Kayseri province. The Kayseri Metropolitan Municipality area is comp ...

, and a graduate of the American

Robert College The American Robert College of Istanbul ( tr, İstanbul Özel Amerikan Robert Lisesi or ), often shortened to Robert, or RC, is a Selective school, highly selective, Independent school, independent, mixed-sex education, co-educational Secondary ...

Istanbul Istanbul ( , ; tr, İstanbul ), formerly known as Constantinople ( grc-gre, Κωνσταντινούπολις; la, Constantinopolis), is the List of largest cities and towns in Turkey, largest city in Turkey, serving as the country's economic, ...

, he settled in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

in the late 19th century, and was responsible for drawing greater attention to Near Eastern and Islamic artifacts in the United States.

Career

Kevorkian carried out excavations in

Persia Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...

, in Sultanabad from 1903 and at the medieval city of Rey from around 1907, and assembled an outstanding collection of

Oriental art The history of Asian art includes a vast range of arts from various cultures, regions, and religions across the continent of Asia. The major regions of Asia include Central, East, South, Southeast, and West Asia. Central Asian art primarily co ...

, especially

Islamic Islam (; ar, ۘالِإسلَام, , ) is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion centred primarily around the Quran, a religious text considered by Muslims to be the direct word of God (or '' Allah'') as it was revealed to Muhammad, the mai ...

and

Persian Persian may refer to: * People and things from Iran, historically called ''Persia'' in the English language ** Persians, the majority ethnic group in Iran, not to be conflated with the Iranic peoples ** Persian language, an Iranian language of the ...

. 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 from

Isfahan Isfahan ( fa, اصفهان, Esfahân ), from its Achaemenid empire, ancient designation ''Aspadana'' and, later, ''Spahan'' in Sassanian Empire, middle Persian, rendered in English as ''Ispahan'', is a major city in the Greater Isfahan Regio ...

, books and paintings, carpets and ceramics, were held in the 1920s at the Anderson Gallery, New York. In 1929 he acquired at auction the Mughal album of calligraphy and painting that became known as the Kevorkian Album, now renamed "The

Shah Jahan Shihab-ud-Din Muhammad Khurram (5 January 1592 – 22 January 1666), better known by his regnal name Shah Jahan I (; ), was the fifth emperor of the Mughal Empire, reigning from January 1628 until July 1658. Under his emperorship, the Mugha ...

Album" by the

Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York City, colloquially "the Met", is the largest art museum in the Americas. Its permanent collection contains over two million works, divided among 17 curatorial departments. The main building at 1000 ...

(rather confusingly, as there is at least one other album called this). The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and the

Freer Gallery The Freer Gallery of Art is an art museum of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. focusing on Asian art. The Freer and the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery together form the National Museum of Asian Art in the United States. The Freer and S ...

Washington, D.C. ) , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, ...

now hold elements of the Kevorkian Album in their collections. An auction of some of his collection occurred in 1970 at the

Parke-Bernet Parke-Bernet Galleries was an American auction house, active from 1937 to 1964, when Sotheby's purchased it. The company was founded by a group of employees of the American Art Association, including Otto Bernet, Hiram H. Parke, Leslie A. Hyam, ...

Galleries. 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 of

Aleppo )), is an adjective which means "white-colored mixed with black". , motto = , image_map = , mapsize = , map_caption = , image_map1 = ...

(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 the

, the

Louvre The Louvre ( ), or the Louvre Museum ( ), is the world's most-visited museum, and an historic landmark in Paris, France. It is the home of some of the best-known works of art, including the ''Mona Lisa'' and the ''Venus de Milo''. A central l ...

, the

Victoria and Albert Museum The Victoria and Albert Museum (often abbreviated as the V&A) in London is the world's largest museum of applied arts, decorative arts and design, housing a permanent collection of over 2.27 million objects. It was founded in 1852 and nam ...

, and more.

Philanthropy

The Brooklyn Art Museum's Kevorkian Gallery displays the Assyrian reliefs he donated to the institution. After Kevorkian's death, his foundation established the Kevorkian Chair of Iranian Studies at

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...

New York University New York University (NYU) is a private research university in New York City. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded by a group of New Yorkers led by then-Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin. In 1832, the ...

has a center named after him that houses its Middle Eastern studies department and library. 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. He was a major benefactor of the

University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology The University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology—commonly known as the Penn Museum—is an archaeology and anthropology museum at the University of Pennsylvania. It is located on Penn's campus in the University City neighb ...

. 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 the

University of Pennsylvania The University of Pennsylvania (also known as Penn or UPenn) is a private research university in Philadelphia. It is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and is ranked among the highest-regarded universitie ...

Hasanlu Teppe Hasanlu or Hasanlu Tepe ( fa, تپه حسنلو) is an archeological site of an ancient city''The Cambridge History of Iran'' (ed. by W.B. Fischer, Ilya Gershevitch, Ehsan Yarshster). Cambridge University Press, 1993. . Pages 57–58, 138. ...

, 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.

References

External links

The Emperors' album: images of Mughal India
an exhibition catalog from The Metropolitan Museum of Art (fully available online as PDF), which contains material collected by Kevorkian {{DEFAULTSORT:Kevorkian, Hagop Armenian art collectors Armenian American art collectors American people of Armenian descent Emigrants from the Ottoman Empire to the United States University of Pennsylvania people People from Kayseri Armenians from the Ottoman Empire 1872 births 1962 deaths Robert College alumni American orientalists Armenian archaeologists University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology