Chester Beatty Library

Museum would be a better word for it. The Chester Beatty Library displays a private collection of rare manuscripts and prints from around the world, some sacred and some secular, going as far back as the Ancient civilizations.

Even with the word library, it attracts over 300,000 visitors a year! It is free admission. This building was opened in 2000, at Dublin Castle, in the restored Clock Tower Building (18th c.) where an extension was added to display the exhibits in an environmentally controlled space.

The library aims to promote “the appreciation and understanding of world cultures, and the engagement with the peoples whose cultures are represented in the collections.”

There are 2 permanent galleries, but it seems there are many items not on permanent view. The 3^rd gallery is for temporary exhibitions which can be from the Chester Beatty collections or from other museums.

On entering, one can enjoy the spacey atmosphere of the glass-roofed atrium, with its water feature;
nice shop also.
The coffee shop is called Silk Road Café.

One must thank this man for the opportunity to see so many rare items, his personal collection. They say, he always insisted on quality and beauty when he purchased something.

Sir Alfred Chester Beatty (1875-1968) was an American businessman and philanthropist. His paternal grandparents were born in Ireland. Alfred Chester Beatty was born in New York City, the son of a banker, but he actually made his fortune in mining. He apparently started to collect rocks when he was only a child.

After graduating as a mining engineer, he worked in the mines in Colorado, actually clearing rocks. He also collected stamps. He became very successful and a magnate known as The King of Copper. He started to also collect other items, such as Chinese snuff bottles and Japanese objects.

When his wife died, he moved to London with his two young children. There, he remarried. With his second wife, he travelled a lot and both of them collected foreign objects; they visited France, Egypt, Iran, India, China, Japan... He collected rare books and manuscript from Europe, North Africa, the Middle East and Asia.

Naturalised British, he was knighted in 1954 for having contributed to the war effort by supplying raw material. He was a sponsor of the British Museum in London and financially supported many of its acquisitions.

Disappointed by the political climate in England, he moved to Dublin in 1950 and opened the Chester Beatty Library (then on Shrewsbury Road) to store his collections. It opened to the public four years later. A. Chester Beatty was given the Freedom of Dublin and was made an honorary citizen of Ireland.

He did not want his collection split up. In his will, Beatty bequeathed his collection to the nation. Some of the artwork went to the National Gallery of Ireland (19th century French paintings) and some items were donated to the British Museum and Le Louvre. But the large part of his collected items stayed in Dublin.

When he died, he became the first private citizen to be accorded a state funeral in Ireland. He is buried in Dublin.

One cannot take photographs inside the galleries.
So, I have scanned the brochures and postcards I bought to illustrate the post.
But there were so many items to look at, it would require several visits to really appreciate the significance of it all.

So I’ll start by mentioning the temporary exhibition called The Art of Friendship: Japanese Surimono Prints. Considered one of the finest collection of surimono prints in the world. They include work by Katsushika Hokusai and Toyota Hokkei. 

24 Paragons of Filial Piety for the Shippō Circle: Guo Ju 

by Totoya Hokkei (1825)

All purchased by A. Chester Beatty, who couldn’t afford the most expensive commercial prints going to auctions in the 1950s and 1960s, so he bought these one-off items which makes them now much rarer.

Approximately 75 woodblock prints from the 18th and 19th century, during the cultural era of Edo Japan. They would have been commissioned to leading artists, to be offered as gifts to friends, in some poetry circles. Most of them feature some short poems written for the occasion. Some prints were made especially for the New Year.

Rooster threatening a painted cockerel 

by Totoya Hokkei (1825)

Woman Watching a Rabbit Row the Crescent Moon 

by Katsushika Hokusai (1819)

The prints are much more impressive when viewed in person, because one can see the textured pattern purposely made on the paper, thanks to the woodblock printing process. It can be seen on this postcard, with the waves not being made by inking. On other prints, the marking may be on the clothing, giving the appearance of real textile.

Mashizu Preparing to Write Her First Calligraphy of the New Year

by Keisai Eisen (1820s)

On some prints, there are details coloured with metallic paint (here on the sail). The prints are not large, so the amount of detail is stunning.

Basket of Aubergines (from series Three Lucky Dreams) 

signed Hokkei (c. 1828)

I bought this one cos I love aubergines. They look so furry, at first I thought they were rodents... Aubergines are a luckier dream...

As for the permanent displays at the Chester Beatty Library, they are split between two large rooms. The museum has classified the whole collection into 3 groups: Western, Islamic and East Asian, and this is duplicated on the two floors: one being specifically religious/sacred books.

There is a good photo gallery online http://www.cbl.ie/Image-Gallery.aspx

The first permanent gallery is called The Arts of the Book and is an overwhelming collection of manuscripts, prints and objects from around the world, with an emphasis on the decorative and artistic aspect of the book: illustrations, calligraphy, binding. So it is all quite colourful.

Eclectic but not exhaustive, the collections do not represent all cultures, nor every historical era. But it is truly a “visual feast.”

Many languages and scripts are represented: Hieroglyphs, Coptic (later Egyptian, in its 4 dialects), Greek, Armenian, Slovanic/Slavic, Ethiopian, Hebrew, Syriac, Arabic, Persian, Chinese, Japanese and more. 

The earliest items must be the Ancient Egyptian papyri: Love Poems (roll from 1160 BC), and Books of the Dead. 

The Medical Papyri from Ancient Egypt describe treatments against ailments. 

Some items are parchment, some paper and even other materials are present.

There are some very informative short videos on the techniques of woodblock/woodcut printing, etching and engraving.  

There are European items: 

illuminated manuscripts from the Middle-Ages, printed books, 

prints by Albrecht Dürer (1471-1528) and Goya (1746-1828), 

satirical illustrations from the French Revolution, etc.

There is a huge amount of books collected for their bindings (covers). Many of them only have their spine on display. 

Beatty collected 1,000 European book-bindings and 26,000 prints (many mounted in albums)!

 

Folio (early 17^th c.) from album made for
Mughal Emperors of Muslim India

The Islamic collections include illuminated manuscripts, miniatures, pouches to carry the Qur’an, Persian poetry (The Shahnama /Book of Kings, from 1335 Iran), paintings from Mughal India, an astrolabe (astronomy and computing device from 18^th century Iran), etc.

The natural pigments used to add colour are also explained; such as the rare lapis lazuli for blue and even red lead.

But some Arabic manuscripts were purchased for the texts and various types of calligraphy are highlighted. Scripts I have always found very aesthetically pleasing.

The bindings from the Middle-East and India have amazingly intricate lace-like design as decorative covers – thankfully macro photography is added to the display.

The museum is putting online a database of seal impressions found in the 2,600 manuscripts of its Islamic collection.

 

From the East Asian collection

Very rare and largest outside China: “One of the finest collection of Chinese jade books in the world”- yes made out of a piece of jade the size of a paperback. They were made for Qing Qianlong Emperor (18^th c.)

From China, there are also albums, woodblock prints, engravings and painted scrolls, as well as Imperial dragon robes (with embroidered silk) and a selection of the 950 Chinese snuff bottles that A. Chester Beatty had collected! Each one is different and material varies greatly: glass, porcelain, ivory, metal, precious stones…

The Entrance Gate at Enoshima in Sagami Province 

(Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji) by Hiroshige (1858)

Amongst the Japanese items are woodblock prints by Hiroshige and Hokusai; Samurai armour, sword-guards, picture books or scrolls from Nara, such as, I think, Kano Sansetsu’s Chogonka scrolls (Song of Lasting Sorrow, 17th c.)

The Bank of the Sumida River 

(Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji) by Hiroshige (1858)

There is a nice display of The Tale of Genji from a scroll. I took time to read the story but I can only find details of two other Japanese picture scrolls from the early 17^th century (restored 2010-12) containing The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter, the oldest Japanese work of fiction in prose, written in 9th/10th century. It is known to have been the inspiration for the famous Tale of Genji, and the scrolls in Dublin are believed to be the earliest version in existence. But I don’t remember seeing that one…

Sukiyabashi (Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji) by Hiroshige (1858)

This video played at the museum shows the conservation work carried out on some large Japanese scrolls: 大江山物語 The Tale of Oeyama, the medieval tale of a hero and an ogre:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-86fyhuSAHE

Koshigaya in Musashi Province 

(Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji) by Hiroshige (1858)

Tsuma Gome (Sixty-Nine Stations of the Kisokaido) 

by Ichiyusai Kuniyoshi (1852)

Other regions of Asia are represented too, but by this time, my head was spinning with information and I hadn’t yet entered the second gallery. So I may not recall precisely where I saw what and if I saw it at all!

^ Just outside the first gallery are some large items of Chinese furnishing, such as this cabinet and the blue and white porcelain vases on top.

 

Krishna and the Cowherds (1801 India) from the Hinduism faith

Anyway, I did wander around the second gallery which is dedicated to Sacred Traditions, that is, religious items.

Here, the sacred traditions represented are: Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, Confucianism, Daoism, Sikhism and Jainism.

Clear interpretations explain the symbols found on the displayed items.

There were less visitors in this gallery, yet some of the items here have a greater historic value.

 

The Gospel of Luke (3rd century AD) papyrus codex

The Chester Beatty Biblical Papyri are Christian codex manuscripts in Greek. They date from the 2^nd and 3^rd century AD. They are portions of the Old and New Testaments, while one is a portion from the Book of Enoch. They include the oldest manuscript of Paul's letters, the Gospels, Acts and Revelation - These documents changed the understanding of when the Christians accepted the Four Gospels as canonical, moving the date back by one century or so.

These papyri have been digitized by The Center for the Study of New Testament Manuscripts http://csntm.org/Manuscript (search Chester to view)

The codex is one of the predominant form of document for the oldest objects here: rolls or sheets folded in concertina. Manichaean codices, in Coptic, document the now-lost religion of Prophet Mani (400 AD psalmbooks).

The Pope blessed A. Chester Beatty for his discovery of a manuscript in Syriac, the language spoken in the then-mostly-Christian Syria (c. 500 AD). The document comments on the Diatessaron, a harmonised version of the gospels that had merged the Four Gospels together, thus proving the existence of this version used for two centuries by the Syrian Church.

There are also Gospels on parchment, some from the 12^th century, illuminated Bibles, Armenian Gospels, Byzantine manuscripts with decorated initials, Ethiopian devotional works on parchment (17^th - 19^th c.)

Hebrew Bibles and Hebrew scrolls from Italy (16^th to 19^th c.), Samaritan texts.

 

Dala’il al-Khayrat (Islamic book of prayers, 15^th c.)

The Qur’an collection counts more than 260 items (some from the 8th c.) – one of the most important outside the Middle East. There are some beautifully illuminated copies. Rare Turkish volume of The Life of the Prophet Muhammad (16th c.) One of the treasures of the library is a Qur’an from the year 1001, made in Bagdad by an illustrious calligrapher called Ibn al-Bawwab.

There is a statue of Buddha. Other Buddhist items: ritual objects, small altar table, paintings on cloth, Tibetan sacred texts, other religious manuscripts (Mongolian, Thai, Burmese, Sumatra). I think I saw a Japanese portable shrine…

Managed to reach the next level after all that, to check out the Roof Garden.

The garden, with small areas of boardwalk, stones and gravel, is planted with scented plants and “designed as a contemporary Irish garden using natural and indigenous materials in a straightforward and refined manner. It does not attempt to mimic a historic garden from any particular culture. Although visitors may see occasional hints at other traditions of garden design, these are not intentional.” It takes longer to read that, than to walk around this small space.

The view is rather obstructed by the trellis used as a fence and parapet. But one can step up, to look down on the Dubh Linn Gardens and Dublin Castle (http://picturesofdubhlinn.blogspot.co.uk/2017/07/dublin-castle.html ) and the large Herring Gull scavenging on a dead bird.
I was ready for a chicken sandwich…

The visit of the Chester Beatty Library does reinforce the idea of respect for other cultures.
It is very informative but not didactic. The items are interpreted and there is no political-correctness- gone-wrong, which is what I liked the most. The public seemed very enthralled by the displays, it was a quiet experience.

Check out some of the museum videos on YouTube: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D0Yvoi0mmsU

https://www.youtube.com/user/ChesterBeattyLibrary

Downloaded description from the official Chester Beatty Library website:
http://picturesofdubhlinn.blogspot.co.uk/p/the-chester-beatty-library-collections.html