ASIAN ART The newspaper for collectors, dealers, museums and galleries • june 2005 • £5.00/US$8/€10 THE NEWSPAPER FOR COLLECTORS, DEALERS, MUSEUMS AND GALLERIES • MARCH 2018 • £5.00/US$10/€10


The Taj Mahal and the Battle of Air Pollution


THE GOVERNMENT OF India announced earlier this year that it is to restrict the number of daily visitors to the Taj Mahal in an attempt to preserve the 17th-century monument. One of the best known buildings in the world, and arguably India’s greatest monument, makes it one of the most- visited tourist attractions in the world. Millions of mostly Indian tourists visit the Taj Mahal every year and their numbers are increasing


steadily, as


domestic travel becomes easier. As the crowds have grown over the years, the white marble tomb is subject to more wear and tear to its now fragile infrastructure,


which already


undergoes regular cleaning to help prevent the heavily polluted air badly discolouring the stone. In future, only 40,000 local tourists


will be allowed to enter the historic complex per day and foreign visitors will pay 1,000 rupees (US$16) a day to enter. Indian nationals normally pay 40 rupees for entry, but will be able to


buy the more expensive ticket if they want to get around the limit. Night viewing is still permitted, but restricted to five nights a month (including full moon). Smog and heavy air pollution has been yellowing the Taj Mahal for many years and conservationists have been fighting through the courts to control the levels of pollution in Agra. Te Taj faces numerous threats, not only from air pollution, but also insects, and effluents which are deposited on the rear wall facing the heavily polluted Yamuna River. Years of interventions – including using mudpacks to draw the stain from the stone – have failed to arrest the slow decay of the building. Te mausoleum


was built by


Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan (r 1628- 1658) in memory of his wife Mumtaz Mahal. Commissioning started in 1631 and construction started in 1632 and was completed in 1648, with the mosque, the guest house and the main gateway on the south, the outer


J. J. L a l l y & Co. oriental art


41 East 57th Street New York, NY 10022 Tel (212) 371-3380 www.jjlally.com


Ancient Chinese Jade Exhibition and Sale March 15-29, 2018


courtyard and its cloisters were added subsequently and the complex was finally completed in 1653, with the tomb being the central focus of the entire complex of the Taj Mahal. It was inscribed on the World


Heritage List in 1983. Although the Taj Trapezium Zone (TTZ), which looks after 40 protected monuments, including three World Heritage Sites, Taj Mahal, Agra Fort and Fatehpur Sikri, delivered a court ban on the use of coal/coke in industries located in the TTZ, the ruling has failed to halt the increased air pollution in the zone. Last month, Te Supreme Court ordered the state government of Uttar Pradesh to produce a ‘vision document’ outlining its plan for protecting this new wonder of the modern world alongside the National Green Tribunal which has sought a response from the Archaeological Survey of India on why the TTZ ruling has not had any affect on the pollution problem in regard to the related buildings.


Te Taj Mahal, on the banks of the Yamuna River in Agra, continues its long battle against pollution and the fight to control its burgeoning visitor numbers


NEWS IN BRIEF


FREER/SACKLER AWARD Te Freer Gallery of Art and the Arthur M Sackler Gallery have been awarded a grant of more than US$1 million from the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism of the Republic of Korea. During the five-year programme, two masterworks from the National Museum of Korea will be on exhibit, senior scholars will be in residence and the Freer|Sackler’s annual Korean Film Festival and other public programmes will contribute to raising the profile of Korean art and culture on the National Mall. Te first masterwork exhibition will be held in 2019 at the Freer|Sackler.


SANJUSANGENDO HALL, KYOTO Preservation and repair work has now been completed on all 1,001 statues of 1,000-armed Kannon bodhisattva at Kyoto’s Sanjusangendo Hall, ending a 45-year wait. Te preservation and repair work on the statues, designated as important cultural properties, started in 1973, using the Cultural Affairs Agency’s subsidy programme for such properties and national treasures. Annually, between 15 and 30 statues were overhauled, but about 40 per year were repaired starting in 2013. Te work mainly involved cleaning off dust and preventing gold foil from peeling off the relics, the oldest of which date from the latter years of the Heian Period (794 to 1185).


HAN-DYNASTY MIRROR, JAPAN Archaeologists in Japan have unearthed a 1,900-year- old Chinese mirror that is not only still intact, but well-preserved enough to still show a faint reflection. City officials in Fukuoka commented that such a discovery is extremely rare, according to Japanese national newspaper the Asahi Shimbun.


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Profile: Korean artist Kim Guiline


Hiroshi Sugimoto’s Enoura Observatory, Sagami Bay The Royal Asiatic Society In the footsteps of St Thomas in India


Edo-period painting in New York Power and Beauty in China’s Last Dynasty, in Minneapolis Dressed to impress: netsuke Incense culture in imperial China, in Paris Asia Week in New York AWNY gallery shows New York map and essential listings Asia Week in New York, AWNY gallery shows JADA shows New York gallery shows and museum exhibitions New York auction previews Calligraphy in Kansas


Royal gifts from India in Edinburgh; Latiff Mohidi, and


Adel Abdessemed in France Gallery shows Listings


Islamic Arts Diary


Next issue April 2018


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