Egyptian Wood Turners, Mashrabiya and the Screens They Inspire

“In walking through the bazaars and other streets the traveler will be interested in observing how industriously and skillfully the artisans work with their very primitive tools. The carpenters ply their craft without bench, vice, rule or drill.”

—K. Baedeker, ed. Egypt: Handbook for Travellers, 1890

As major patrons of vocational schools and the arts in Boston, the Paines were instinctively drawn to artisans and their crafts on their wide-ranging family trips through Europe, North Africa and the Middle East. They surely would not have missed this note in the fine print of their travel guidebook. If they were not already eager to visit the Muski in Cairo, they certainly would have been after having read about its carpenters.

The lively street bazaars in the Muski, the “chief thoroughfare of the Arabian part of Cairo,” offered a full sensory, immersive experience of everyday life in the East, one that was sure to expand a curious Westerner’s world view. And so the Paines went to the Muski, its busy streets shrouded above by wooden lattice screens or mashrabiya, the ultimate symbol of Islamic culture.

Their Baedeker’s guidebook devoted half a page to the “Mushrebiyeh,…a sort of bow window…[with] lattice-work round them composed of turned pieces of wood… [in] an ingenious and elaborate pattern.” But the Paines already would have been familiar with this exotic artform through literature, paintings and the most fashionable architectural interiors of their time. In fact, America’s foremost architect H.H. Richardson had designed several intricate hand-turned wooden screens for their own summer house in Waltham known as Stonehurst. Back home in Massachusetts, Richardson’s screens in their Great Hall, Summer Parlor and Brooks Bedroom created an enchanting tapestry of filtered and projected light and shadow that changed with the course of the sun.

Through their local guide and interpreter Ali Hassan, the Paines may have learned more about the practical and social uses of the traditional mashrabiya which regulate light, heat, airflow, humidity and privacy in desert climates throughout North Africa and the Middle East. Projecting into the streets or courtyards and fitted with clay waterjugs, the latticework provides shade while allowing for the flow of air over the jugs, cooling the drinking water and humidifying interior spaces. The screens served as sort of peep-holes to the outer world of the community, assuring privacy within the sanctuary of the home.  Their repeating abstract and geometrical patterns are encoded with religious meaning, the whole an exquisitely beautiful summary of unified parts.

Enamored by woodturners in the Cairo streets, the Paines stopped at Elias Hatoun’s newly-opened shop that featured “Arabian woodwork, inlaid work and ivory carvings.” Aided by Ali Hassan, in whom they placed “implicit trust in his integrity in purchases of antiquities,” the Paine family became one of the earliest clients of Hatoun. The company would exhibit in the 1893 and 1904 world’s fairs and would continue to sell antiques and reproductions to American collectors and museums well into the 1920s.

This purchase from the Muski may have been a long time coming. Between the Old Den of the Paines’ original 1866 summer house and the Great Hall of its 1886 Richardson-designed addition, there was an unfinished opening from an old exterior window, an element left unresolved by Richardson. Robert Treat Paine had discussed the window opening and its treatment several times with Richardson in the Fall of 1885, shortly before the architect’s untimely death in April 1886. Perhaps they had dreamed about installing a true Egyptian mashrabiya in this space, an inspired and seamless solution echoing the screens created by Richardson.

A second North African mashrabiya that the Paines purchased in 1890 was clearly created or adapted for the tourist market, since it took the form of a six-foot-tall folding screen, not a window insert. The Paines placed it at the door between the dining room and Butler’s Pantry, separating public space from workspace, the served from the server. These two close-grille Egyptian mashrabiya at Stonehurst added privacy, the primary social function of the originals they saw in Cairo.

In contrast, the placement and open airiness of Richardson’s wide-grille screens emphasized the climatic, atmospheric and aesthetic purposes of Eastern originals over their social purpose. Richardson designed very few Islamic-inspired architectural screens but must have had a strong affinity for them. In his Brookline office that served as an “overpowering…magic source of inspiration,” he displayed mosque lamps, luxurious divans, and an image of the Hagia Sophia. He also fitted up his Brookline house with a mashrabiya chair, an abundance of turned latticework on the main staircase and in his bedroom, and a pierced mashrabiya-inspired bedroom ceiling with a repeating pattern of eight-sided stars and quatrefoils. As his health declined in the mid 1880s, Henry Hobson Richardson famously had to work from his bedroom sanctuary, surrounded by dappled light and shade, repeating geometric patterns, and marvelous craftsmanship inspired by North Africa and the Middle East.

For examples of how mashrabiya continue to inspire artists and architects today, watch this short videos produced by the Aga Khan Museum in Toronto.

Examples of American architectural screens incorporating or inspired by mashrabiya

Olana, the Frederick Church House, Hudson, NY

de Forest House, 15 West 30th St., New York, NY (Lockwood de Forest, 1876)

George Kemp House, New York, NY (Louis C. Tiffany, with screens provided by de Forest, 1879-1880)

William S. Kimball House, Rochester, NY (Associated Artists, 1881-1882)

Veteran’s Room, Seventh Regiment Armory, New York (McKim Mead & White with Associated Artists, 1879-1880)

Newport Casino, Newport, RI (McKim, Mead & White, 1879-1880)

Samuel Tilton House, Newport, RI (McKim, Mead & White, 1880)

Kingscote Dining Room, Newport, RI (McKim, Mead & White with L.C. Tiffany, 1880-1881)

N.L. Anderson House, Washington, DC (H.H. Richardson, 1881-1883)

Stonehurst, the Robert Treat Paine House, Waltham, MA (H.H. Richardson, 1883-1886)

H.H. Richardson House, Brookline, MA (H.H. Richardson alterations before 1886)

Resources

Abdelkader, Reem. “The Evolving Transformation of Mashrabiya as a Traditional Middle Eastern Architectural Element,” International Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering, vol. 17, no. 1, (Feb 2017), pp 15-20.

Baedeker, K., ed. Egypt. Handbook for Travellers. Leipsic: Karl Baedeker. London: Dulau and Co, 1885 [inscribed R.T. Paine, Oct 1890] in the Stonehurst Archives. [later editions are available on line.]

Clifford, Ann. “Richardson’s Interiors,” in “Stonehurst, the Robert Treat Paine Estate, Conditions Assessment Report,” 2005.

Davies, Kristian. The Orientalists: Western Artists in Arabia, the Sahara, Persia and India. New York: Laynfaroh, 2005.

Floyd, Margaret Henderson. “H.H. Richardson, Frederick Law Olmsted and the House for Robert Treat Paine (1884-1886),” Winterthur Portfolio, vol. 18, no. 4, winter 1983), 246.

Gere, Charlotte. Nineteenth-Century Decoration: The Art of the Interior (New York, Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 1989).

Gunter, Ann. A Collector’s Journey: Charles Lang Freer and Egypt. Washington, 2002.

Hassan, Ali letters to Robert Treat Paine, Sept 12, 1896 and July 20, 1897. Robert Treat Paine Papers, Massachusetts Historical Society.

Hassan, Ali. [untitled printed testimonials from various clients, including the Paines.] Cairo: Typographie Boehm & Anderer, 1893. Stonehurst Archives.

Mayer, Roberta A. and Carolyn K. Lane. “Disassociating the Associated Artists: The Early Business Ventures of Louis C. Tiffany, Candace T. Wheeler and Lockwood de Forest,” Decorative Arts, vol. VIII, no. 2 (Spring/Summer 2001).

Mohamed, Jehan. “The Traditional Arts and Crafts of Turnery or Mashrabiya.” (Capstone paper, Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey,Camden, NJ, May 2015).

Paine, George Lyman. “The Lymans, Searses and Paines of Waltham and Boston,” unpublished mss. 1965.

Paine, Lily, Travel journal, 1890-1891. Stonehurst Archives.

Paine, Robert Treat. Pocket diaries, 1885-1886, 1890. Stonehurst Archives.

Paine, Sarah Cushing. Paine Family Ancestry, Boston, Mass.: Printed for the Family, 1912, p 287.

Sheldon, George. Artistic Country Seats.

Tucker, Paul. “Moorish Fretwork Furniture,” The Magazine Antiques, May 2005.

Written by Stonehurst Curator Ann Clifford as part of a 2021 exhibit “Four Continents. Many Craftsmen. One Masterwork.”
New pages will be added throughout the year.