Amazon.com Review
Indiana Jones, move over. In John Malcolm Russell, you have met your match. All right, so Russell doesn't roam the world with a bullwhip in his hand; nevertheless, the adventures outlined in From Nineveh to New York are the very stuff of fiction--except that they're all true. Start with one forgotten city from ancient times, Nineveh, and the swashbuckling 19th-century archaeologist, Sir Austen Henry Layard, who discovered its ruins. Add a pinch of passion in the form of Layard's patroness and close friend, Lady Charlotte Guest, and her jealous husband, Sir John, and voila! A perfect romance. Now jump ahead a century and see what happens when modern archaeologist John Malcolm Russell, himself an expert on Assyrian artifacts, discovers a forgotten relief where nobody expected to find one, and you have the added bonus of a thriller. From the deserts of present-day Iraq to Lady Charlotte's country estate, then to America and finally to the hallowed halls of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Russell follows a particular set of stone reliefs, explaining as he goes the shifts in aesthetics, in art dealing, and in museums that have influenced their fate.
From Nineveh to New York is a history of Nineveh, of British and American artistic tastes, and of archaeology, all rolled into one entertaining package.
From Kirkus Reviews
All the elements for a great art-history drama are here, but this falls disappointingly short of entertaining. The great marble statues and wall reliefs of ancient Assyria (704612 b.c.) and its capital, Nineveh, were largely excavated by adventurer Henry Layard, who was deemed their legal owner. Accordingly, he shipped some of his finds to the British Museum and others to his cousin and patron, Lady Charlotte Guest. Two of the pieces--colossi of a lion and a bull--were so large that Lady Guest had nowhere suitable to display them at her home, Canford Manor. With the help of noted architect Charles Barry and Layard, she built the ``Nineveh Porch,'' designed specifically to showcase the Assyrian statues and reliefs. The porch was decorated with Assyrian-style engravings and shared other features of the artworks' original palace context. Russell's exposition of these events reads more like dry art history than the compelling human- interest story promised in the title. But the section on the colossi's circuitous path to New York City's Metropolitan Museum moves quickly and dramatically. After Canford Manor was sold and became Canford School, much of the art was sold and the porch transformed into a store for the students. Art patron John D. Rockefeller Jr. bought the sculptures from an art dealer and eventually settled on the Met as the recipient of a major gift. The author creates tension about Rockefeller's pending choice and uses it to explore the works' merits--are they historic remnants or beautiful objects? Years after the sale of Canford Manor, some remaining Assyrian pieces were discovered. Russell, an art historian and archaeologist at Columbia University, was called in to determine their authenticity. Iraq, which now comprises ancient Nineveh, tried to block their sale, claiming they were stolen. But Russell addresses only cursorily the important contextual issue of cultural appropriation. This will hold the greatest appeal for fans of ancient Assyria. -- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
Review
Austen Henry Layard, a young Englishman with more pedigree than money, was poking about the Middle East when, in 1845, he discovered the remains of Nineveh and organized its excavation. Assyrian art was an astounding and disconcerting revelation to midcentury Britain. Layard was a relative of Lady Charlotte Guest, the daughter of an earl and the wife of Sir John Guest, a magnate in the iron business. Lady Charlotte took to Assyrian art at once and with enthusiasm. By means that today would be considered highly improper (and that did raise a few Victorian eyebrows), she procured enough Assyrian sculpture and artifacts to add a "Nineveh Porch" to the Guest estate of Canford Manor. The porch was a wild mixture of Victorian Gothic taste and modified Assyrian motifs. The antiquities were real--a most extraordinary collection to have been in private hands. The pieces were eventually dispersed, hawked about by an art dealer, and flirted with by several museums; they wound up in the Metropolitan as a gift from John D. Rockefeller Jr. Display space was always a problem. At one point it seemed that "these marbles, which began their Western career in the Canford stable, might spend the remainder of their days in the Metropolitan's garage." (Under plastic, because the roof leaked.) Mr. Russell writes with unpretentious efficiency, seldom revealing his own opinion of the events he reports, which involve aesthetic theory, social wire-pulling, religious misinterpretation, and a number of interesting people--beginning with Lady Charlotte, who had a weakness for young men on the make. It is a truly remarkable story. -- The Atlantic Monthly, Phoebe-Lou Adams
I haven't read a more thrilling book in years about archeology and the history of taste than John Malcolm Russell's story of the peregrinations of the spectacular Assyrian reliefs and colossi now at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Or one more beautifully organized, scrupulously researched and laden with vivid human characterizations and penetrating observations about the fashions and foibles surrounding artistic styles. -- The New York Times Book Review, Thomas Hoving From the Back Cover
The story of Sir Austen Henry Layard's rediscovery of ancient Assyria and its fabled capital, Nineveh, is one of the great tales of nineteenth-century archeological imperialism, genius, and romance. In this social history of the reception of ancient Assyrian art in England and subsequently America, John Malcolm Russell focuses on the huge collection of artifacts that Layard brought back to England. Much went to the British Museum, but much also to the fascinating Lady Charlotte Guest and then - via a Manhattan dealer and numerous competitive curators and millionaires - to the Metropolitan Museum.
About the Author
John Malcolm Russell is associate professor of art history and archaeology at Columbia University.
