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Elizabeth Sgalitzer Ettinghausen 1918–2016

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 January 2017

Sheila R. Canby
Sheila R. Canby*
Affiliation:
Metropolitan Museum of Art
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Extract

Born in Austria in 1918, Elizabeth spent the World War II years in Istanbul where her father was professor of medicine at Istanbul University. This resulted not only in her learning Turkish but also in developing an interest in Byzantine art and archaeology, leading to a dissertation on Byzantine ceramics. In 1945 she married Richard Ettinghausen, who had recently joined the Freer Gallery of Art and was also lecturing at Princeton University. That marked the beginning of Elizabeth's ties with the town where she lived for many years. In 1966 Richard became Hagop Kevorkian Professor of Islamic Art at the Institute of Fine Arts and in 1969 he was appointed Consultative Chairman of the Department of Islamic Art at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Meanwhile, in addition to pursuing her art–historical interests, Elizabeth was bringing up their two sons in Princeton. Today, the elder son teaches and practices medicine in Rochester, NY, and the younger is in international finance in Abu Dhabi.

Type
In Memoriam
Information
Review of Middle East Studies , Volume 50 , Issue 2 , August 2016 , pp. 231 - 232
Copyright
Copyright © Middle East Studies Association of North America, Inc. 2017 

Born in Austria in 1918, Elizabeth spent the World War II years in Istanbul where her father was professor of medicine at Istanbul University. This resulted not only in her learning Turkish but also in developing an interest in Byzantine art and archaeology, leading to a dissertation on Byzantine ceramics. In 1945 she married Richard Ettinghausen, who had recently joined the Freer Gallery of Art and was also lecturing at Princeton University. That marked the beginning of Elizabeth's ties with the town where she lived for many years. In 1966 Richard became Hagop Kevorkian Professor of Islamic Art at the Institute of Fine Arts and in 1969 he was appointed Consultative Chairman of the Department of Islamic Art at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Meanwhile, in addition to pursuing her art–historical interests, Elizabeth was bringing up their two sons in Princeton. Today, the elder son teaches and practices medicine in Rochester, NY, and the younger is in international finance in Abu Dhabi.

In addition to the many book reviews that Elizabeth wrote, several articles stand out. They include “Analysing a Pictorial Narrative – The Aquamanile in the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg,” in Facts and Artefacts: Art in the Islamic World: Festschrift for Jens Kröger on His 65th Birthday I (2007); “Hidden Messages and Meanings: The Case of The Infant Witness Testifies to Yūsuf's Innocence,” Ars Orientalis (1999); “Byzantine Tiles from the Basilica in the Topkapu Sarayi and Saint John of Studios,” in Cahiers archeölogiques fin de l'antiquité et moyen aĝe (1954). As recently as 2015 she contributed a foreword to Louise Mackie's Symbols of Power: Luxury Textiles from Islamic Lands, 7th–21st Century.

Thanks to her strong constitution and fearlessness, Elizabeth continued well into her nineties to travel to Central Asia, Europe, and the Middle East, accompanied and greeted by friends old and new wherever she went. She passed away on 12 June 2016.