Download: Mosaics of Hagia Sophia, Istanbul - Dumbarton Oaks

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Sketch of Thomas Whittemore
(drawing: H. Matisse,
courtesy of the Fogg Art
Museum, Harvard University
Art Museums, bequest
of Thomas Whittemore;
copyright 1988 Succession
H. Matisse, Paris/Artist
Rights Society, ARS, New
York)
The Byzantine Institute:
Revealing the Past
Background
The purpose of the Byzantine Institute was to
promote the study of Byzantine art, history, and archaeology.
Thomas Whittemore (1871-1950), one of the
institute’s founders, was its first and only director (Fig.
29). 16 Whittemore had previously taught English and
then art history at Tufts University and later at Columbia
University. The first president of the Board of
Directors of the institute was Professor Robert Pierpont
Blake of Harvard University, and among its members
were Professor Michail Ivanovich Rostovtsev (Michael
Rostovtzeff ) of the University of Wisconsin, Madison,
and Robert Woods Bliss, who, together with his wife
Mildred, conveyed Dumbarton Oaks to Harvard. Many
prominent figures in American society understood the
importance of financing Whittemore’s endeavor; the list
of board members reads like an excerpt from Who’s Who
in America (Fig. 30).
The institute—which was active in Boston,
Paris, and Istanbul—gave priority to uncovering and
consolidating the mosaics of Hagia Sophia in one of the
largest conservation projects of this century. Through
connections in U.S., British, and French diplomatic
circles, the institute established contacts in the Turkish
government. President Kemal Atatürk was assured of
the sound future of the project, 17 and with his permis-
16 P. Lemerle, “Hommage à Thomas Whittemore,” Byzantion 21
(1951), 281-83; W. L. MacDonald, “Whittemore, Thomas,”
Dictionary of American Biography, suppl. IV, 1974, 890-91, with
bibliography; G. Constable, “Dumbarton Oaks and Byzantine
Field Work,” Dumbarton Oaks Papers 37 (1983), 171-76.
17 Whittemore also received assistance from Robert Blake, a
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