Sarre, Friedrich

Date born:   1865

Place Born:   Berlin, Germany

Date died:   1945

Place died:   Neubabelsberg, Germany

Collector and archaeologist of middle eastern art. After meeting Carl Humann (q.v.), Sarre traveled to Anatolia to study its medieval monuments. In 1895 and 1896, he visited Phyrigia, Lycaonia, and Pisidia. Sarre discovered several architectural monuments in the area, where he collected epigraphic material. His work interested Arabists such as Bernhard Moritz (1859-1939), Eugen Mittwoch (1876-1942), and Max van Berchem (q.v.). Sarre collected objects from the Middle East, specifically Iran and Istanbul, which were exhibited in Berlin in 1899, and at the Exposition des arts musulmans in Paris in 1903. He met Ernst Herzfeld (q.v.) in 1905, and together, they excavated a site in Samarra, the 9th-century capital of the Abbasid dynasty. They published their findings in Archäologische Reise im Euphrat-und Tigris Gebeit. An exhibition catalogue of Islamic art in Munich included an essay written by Sarre about the Persian carpets. He donated most of his collection to the Kaiser-Friedrich Museum in Berlin. Many of Sarre's books, photographs, and papers were destroyed when his house burned down shortly after his death.  LMW

Home Country:  Germany

Sources:  The Dictionary of Art

Bibliography: