Astrolabes and Diaspora

Dr Sumner Braund will explore how museums can tell fuller and more inclusive stories about the objects in their collections by developing a new model of collaborative provenance research.

This project aims to uncover the human experiences behind an object’s journey from one person and place to another. In order to explore these experiences, collaboration with community researchers is essential. We will work together to read against the grain of archival documents, record oral histories, and explore traditions.

This pilot project focuses on five astrolabes from the Islamic world in the History of Science Museum’s founding collection:

Astrolabe, by Muhammad Mahdi al-Yazdi, Persian, c. 1650 CE (Inv. 50143)

Astrolabe, by 'Abd al-A'imma, Persian, early 1700s (Inv. 37321)

Astrolabe, Turkish, 1678 (Inv. 43559)

Astrolabe, by Muhammad ibn Fattuh al-Khama'iri, Seville, 1221/2 (Inv. 44141)

Astrolabe, by Diya al-Din Muhammad, Lahore, 1658/9 (Inv. 53637)

These astrolabes represent rich, complex histories of scientific innovation and astronomy across a wide range of historic societies. They were bought by an Englishman, Lewis Evans, in Paris in the early 1900s from two art and antiques dealerships, Akchoté Frères and Vitali Fransès Frères. These astrolabes are thus also a part of a wider story about Jewish families who migrated from the Ottoman Empire to Paris and became influential art dealers.

This previously unexplored aspect of the astrolabes’ history provides a powerful opportunity to engage both the layered history of these objects and the traditions of the communities for whom they have held meaning.

Purpose

This project will explore how provenance research – the study of an object’s history of ownership – can be used to deepen our understanding of objects and their histories while developing and strengthening relationships between communities and museums.

Provenance research is now a central part of museum practice. In the context of history of science collections, this research often concentrates solely on the legal – or illegal – transactions that resulted in the transfer of an instrument’s ownership. Priority is often given to the transaction(s) that resulted in the object entering the museum’s collection.

Although this is an important focus, it does in many cases create an emphasis on:

origins: the ‘original’ people who made, used, and prized the object, and
ends: the ‘final’ people who bought and donated the object.

For many objects, the ‘origin’ and ‘end’ are centuries apart – and in that gap we lose the rich history of many generations of people, across various societies, who used, valued, bought, sold, bequeathed, and gifted the object.

This project focuses provenance research in this gap. It aims to show that investigating historical questions in collaboration with community researchers can advance knowledge, build trust, and deepen relationships between the museum and communities.

Approach

This project will take a case-study approach, focusing on five astrolabes that were sold by two art and antiques dealerships. These objects are diverse in both place and time of origin. However, by the late 1800s they were part of the collection of two families from a distinctive social minority in Paris: the Ottoman Jewish diaspora.

The astrolabes are embedded in layered histories:

the scientific traditions of their makers
the collecting practices of collectors in the late 1800s (e.g. Lewis Evans), and
the transnational networks of Ottoman Jewish art and antiques dealers.

Studying these intertwined histories provides an exceptional opportunity to expand provenance research beyond legal ownership, uncovering the social, cultural, and economic forces that shaped the circulation of objects.

In collaboration, we will identify relevant archival documents in national (UK) and international (French and Turkish) institutional archives. We will read against the grain of the documents, conduct oral histories, and explore community traditions.