Dr. Ayşe Aldemir, Head of the Arts of the Book and Calligraphy Collection at Sabancı University Sakıp Sabancı Museum, has authored an article titled “Ottoman Tastemaker Robert-Sadia Pardo and a Sixteenth-Century Prayer Rug in The Met.” This scholarly work has been honored with inclusion in the 2024 edition of the MET Journal, the esteemed annual publication of The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.
By the first quarter of the twentieth century, museums and private collectors in the United States had amassed Islamic art collections of considerable quality and quantity. Undoubtedly, antiques dealers and collectors of Eastern origins played an essential role in the formation of these collections and their arrival in the States. The purpose of this paper is to introduce one such figure, Robert-Sadia Pardo (1862-1926), who is not well-known among the tastemakers of Islamic art collections in the United States. Despite his role in selling Islamic pieces to many collections, which later became museum collections, research on Pardo has thus far been insufficient. This paper will introduce Pardo through the story of a sixteenth-century prayer rug, which he had restored in Istanbul and transported to New York. It will examine this extraordinary collector’s life, which took him from Istanbul to Paris, his commercial success; his international relationships, expertise, and collection; particularly with regards to carpets; and his identity as a researcher. Moreover, this study aspires to illuminate the intricate interplay of cultural and artistic currents of the era, articulated through the singular narrative of Pardo.
You can read the article by clicking the link.
About Dr. Ayşe Aldemir
Ayşe Aldemir began her undergraduate studies in Art History at Hacettepe University in 1995, graduating first in her class in 1999. That same year, she commenced a postgraduate program in Archaeology and Art History at Bilkent University, completing all coursework. In 2000, she received a scholarship from Sabancı University to attend a Paper Conservation and Restoration program in Italy, graduating in 2003 from Palazzo Spinelli, Istituto per l’Arte e il Restauro in Florence. In 2007, she enrolled in the Master’s program in Art Management at Yeditepe University, earning her degree in 2009. She completed her doctorate in Turkish Islamic Arts at Mimar Sinan University of Fine Arts, Department of Art History, in 2021. Since 2003, she has served as the curator of the Arts of the Book and Calligraphy Collection at Sabancı University Sakıp Sabancı Museum.