The Aleppo Room (Arabic: الغرفة الحلبيَّة, Al-Ġurfah Al-Ḥalabiyyah) is the paneling of a reception room, or qa’a, from a residential building in Aleppo, Syria. The wooden panels form part of the collections of the Museum of Islamic Art section of the Pergamon Museum, on Berlin's Museum Island.
The panels found their way to Germany after the Wakil family sold them in 1912 to Mrs. Mary Koch, who then donated them to the Pergamon Museum in Berlin. Currently, the panels are displayed in the "Aleppian Hall" in the Islamic section of the museum.
Bayt Wakil house is situated in Al-Jdayde quarter on Sissi Street in Aleppo, Syria. It includes two attached houses that are best known for this intricate wooden paneling. The Aleppo Room paneling were carved by a Persian artist in 1603, the depictions are of biblical scenes featuring the Virgin Mary, Christ and his disciples.
Description
Aleppo Room's ornate woodwork belongs to Wakil House (Arabic: بيت وكيل / ALA-LC: Beit Wakil) in Al-Jdayde historic district in the Syrian city of Aleppo. The wood paneling covered the walls of the oldest hall in the house. Further, the inscriptions that was found written on them date them back to the year (Hegira 1009 or 1012 / AD 1600–01 or 1603). According to this, these paintings are the oldest Syrian art from this category that still exist today. In addition, the importance of the drawings is due to their unique value; plant motifs usually dominate the scenes in such paintings, but on the contrary, the drawings of the Aleppo Room are images of people and various scenes that also include animals.
Historic context
The Aleppo Room mobility
The painted wooden wall panelling once furnished the reception hall of a wealthy broker's home, who was a Christian citizen in the Ottoman Empire at the beginning of the 17th century. In this room he welcomed visitors from other ethnic and religious backgrounds.
The panels found there way to Germany after the Wakil family sold them in 1912 to Mrs. Mary Koch, who then donated them to the Pergamom Museum in Berlin. The museum obtained them by purchase in 1912 AD for an amount of one thousand Ottoman liras at that time. They are housed in the Museum of Islamic Art.
Since the Aleppo Room came from Aleppo, Syria into the collection of the Museum für Islamische Kunst, its presentation has changed several times. All these changes are related to historical assumptions, museum concepts and didactic approaches. Soon after its arrival in Berlin, only some of the panels were shown in the Kaiser Friedrich Museum (originally called Kaiser - Friedrich - Museum by Emperor Frederick III of Germany), now known as the Bode Museum. Presumably the lack of space made this reduced presentation necessary, because the Islamic collection was only one department of the Kaiser Friedrich Museum. But it also reveals the founders’ intention at that time. The exhibition should represent a wide range of works of art from the Islamic lands with their different compositions of ornaments and patterns. Islamic Art changed at that time from a relatively strange and unknown to a popular subject with a growing public interest.
The display was first of all aimed at making this style descriptive and comprehensible to the visitors. In 1932 the collection moved into the then newly built Pergamon Museum, where it has remained until today. This was the chance for an extended exhibition. With more space available, the Aleppo Room was presented in a special space of its own, where the whole room could be viewed at once.
A historical photograph of 1938 shows the arrangement of the complete panelling in a rectangular form along the walls. It has been extended to a three-dimensional presentation. But the decorative panels of the Aleppo Room served more as a surrounding for a regular exhibition room with show-cases. The impression of its original intention and its relevance as a unique example of interior decoration was still barely noticeable. Also, the aim was to present the panels as objects of art rather than to convey their relevance to an architectural context. The room remained as such until the end of World War II. In order to protect the panels, they were dismantled and stored in boxes. Some of the panels were kept in storage in the Pergamon.