An important Ottoman-Khedival gilt-wood taht (throne), Turkey, late 18th century

Ex-collection Mstislav Rostropovich & Galina Vishnevskaya

Born in 1927 to a family of musicians, Rostropovich began his cello studies with his father and made his solo debut at thirteen. After the family was evacuated during the war, he returned to Moscow in 1943, enrolling in the Conservatoire to study under Dmitri Shostakovich. After winning the prestigious All-Union Competition in 1945, he focused on a performing career, quickly becoming a leading Soviet artist renowned in the West. His global reputation was solidified after performances in England and the USA in 1956, and he became known for championing contemporary composers like Glière, Myaskovsky, and Britten. His wife, Galina Vishnevskaya, was a survivor of the siege of Leningrad and became one of the main sopranos at the Bolshoi Theatre. The couple married within four days of knowing each other at the 1955 Prague Spring Festival, united by their love of music. In 1968, Rostropovich supported dissident writer Alexander Solzhenitsyn, leading to conflicts with Soviet authorities. He later became the music director of the National Symphony Orchestra in Washington, where he served for seventeen seasons. Stripped of their Soviet citizenship in 1978, the couple only returned to Russia after the fall of communism, to great acclaim.

The European rococo style became highly popular in the Ottoman decorative repertoire following increased diplomatic interactions with the courts of Louis XIV and Louis XV in the eighteenth century. It prominently features in the apartments of Mihrişah Sultan, the mother of Selim III (r.1789-1807), in the Topkapi Palace, Istanbul. According to Professor Michael Rogers, the apartments boast “a low ceiling supported on slender columns with extravagant carved and gilt rococo decoration, decoratively framed wall niches, some with European tiles, and Westernising garden landscapes. These may well derive from illustrated French works on gardening, and the construction of pleasure pavilions, brought back by Ottoman embassies from the courts of Louis XIV and Louis XV at Marly and Versailles” (Rogers 1988, p.39, nos.28-31).

A virtually identical taht can be found in the Manial Palace in Cairo. This palace was built by Prince Muhammad Ali Tawfik (1875-1955), a scion of the Muhammad Ali dynasty that ruled Egypt between 1805 and 1953. The palace complex consists of five separate buildings, each distinctively styled with alternating Art Nouveau, rococo, Ottoman, and Andalusian designs. The complex is surrounded by Persian gardens within an extensive English landscape garden along a small branch of the Nile. Following the death of King Fuad I in 1936, Prince Muhammad Ali became the chief regent for the sixteen-year-old King Farouk I. For many years, he prepared himself to rule Egypt and Sudan, even building a throne room in the Manial Palace where the companion piece to this taht is displayed.

After land reforms under Khedive Ismail, Egypt became a land of plenty in the mid-nineteenth century, amassing enormous wealth through the cultivation and export of cotton. This prosperity culminated in the completion of the Suez Canal in 1869, marked by extravagant celebrations and the exchange of numerous diplomatic gifts. Objects like the present taht and its counterpart in the Manial Palace may have been sent from Istanbul to Egypt by the Ottoman Sultan.