The L.A. Mayer Institute for Islamic Art is a museum in Jerusalem, Israel

Israel

The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...

, established in 1974. It is located in Katamon, down the road from the Jerusalem Theater

Jerusalem Theater

The Jerusalem Theater is a center for the performing arts in Jerusalem, Israel. The theater opened in 1971. The complex consists of the Sherover Theatre, which seats 950, the Henry Crown Symphony Hall with 750 seats, the Rebecca Crown Auditorium, with 450 seats, and the Little Theater with 110...

. The museum houses Islamic pottery, textiles, jewelry, ceremonial objects and other Islamic cultural artifacts.

History

The museum was founded by Vera Bryce Salomons, daughter of Sir David Lionel Salomons

David Lionel Goldsmid-Stern-Salomons

Sir David Lionel Goldsmid-Stern-Salomons, 2nd Baronet was a scientific author and barrister.The son of Philip Salomons of Brighton, and Emma, daughter of Jacob Montefiore of Sydney, he succeeded to the Baronetcy originally granted to his uncle David Salomons in 1873...

, in memory of her professor, Leo Aryeh Mayer

Leo Aryeh Mayer

Leo Aryeh Mayer , was an Israeli scholar of Islamic art and rector of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.-Biography:Mayer was born in 1895 in the city of Stanisławów, Galicia, then in Austria-Hungary , to an eminent rabbinical hasidic family...

, rector of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem

Hebrew University of Jerusalem

The Hebrew University of Jerusalem ; ; abbreviated HUJI) is Israel's second-oldest university, after the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology. The Hebrew University has three campuses in Jerusalem and one in Rehovot. The world's largest Jewish studies library is located on its Edmond J...

, a scholar of Islamic art who died in 1959. It has nine galleries organized in chronological order, exploring the beliefs and art of Islamic civilization. In addition to Mayer's private collection, the museum houses antique chess pieces, dominoes and playing cards; daggers, swords, helmets; textiles; jewelry; glassware, pottery and metalware produced in Islamic countries, from Spain

Spain

Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...

 to India

India

India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...

. A collection of Islamic carpets was added in 1999.

Rare clock collection

A gallery in the museum also displays the David Salomons clock and watch collection. Salomons was the nephew of the first Jewish Lord Mayor of London.

1983 burglary

On 15 April 1983 some 200 items, including paintings and dozens of rare clocks and watches, were stolen when the museum was burgled. Among the stolen timepieces was the watch known as the "Marie Antoinette

Marie Antoinette (watch)

The Breguet No. 160 grand complication, more commonly known as the Marie-Antoinette or the Queen, is a case watch designed by Swiss watchmaker Abraham-Louis Breguet. Work on the watch was begun in 1782 and completed in 1827, four years after Breguet's death.The watch was commisioned in 1783 by an...

", the so-called "Mona Lisa" of watches, and the crown jewel of the watch collection, made by the famed French-Swiss watchmaker Abraham-Louis Breguet reputedly for Queen Marie Antoinette

Marie Antoinette

Marie Antoinette ; 2 November 1755 – 16 October 1793) was an Archduchess of Austria and the Queen of France and of Navarre. She was the fifteenth and penultimate child of Holy Roman Empress Maria Theresa and Holy Roman Emperor Francis I....

, and estimated to be worth US$30 million. It was part of a unique collection of 57 Breguet timepieces donated to the museum by the daughter of Sir David Lionel Salomons, one of the leading experts on Breguet.

At the time, evidence at the scene led to speculation that it had been committed by at least four burglars, but in the late 2000s Israeli police arrested Naaman Diller, who had committed a number of burglaries and bank break-ins in the 1960s and 1970s. Diller had acted alone after discovering that the museum's alarm system was not working and the guard was posted at the front of the building. Behind the cover of a parked truck, Diller used a crowbar to prise apart the bars on a rear window. Items he could not remove in one piece were dismantled. Diller stashed many of the stolen items in safety deposit boxes in Europe and the USA, before settling in Los Angeles

Los Ángeles

Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...

.

The case remained unsolved for more than 20 years. In August 2006, a Tel Aviv

Tel Aviv

Tel Aviv , officially Tel Aviv-Yafo , is the second most populous city in Israel, with a population of 404,400 on a land area of . The city is located on the Israeli Mediterranean coastline in west-central Israel. It is the largest and most populous city in the metropolitan area of Gush Dan, with...

antiques appraiser contacted the museum and reported that some of the stolen items were being held by a Tel Aviv lawyer whose client had inherited them from her deceased husband, and who wished to sell them back to the museum. The original asking price was US$2 million (the value of the reward offered in the case) but this was negotiated down to US$35,000. Among the returned items was the "Marie Antoinette" and a valuable "Sympathique" clock, also by Breguet. A later search of a warehouse in Israel produced documents that led to safety deposit boxes owned by Diller in Israel, Germany, the Netherlands and the United States. Police identified the client as Nili Shamrat, an expatriate Israeli who had married Diller in 2003. She told police that just before her husband's death in 2004 he confessed and advised her to sell the collection. Shamrat was arrested in May 2008 after a house search by Israeli and American investigators found several of the stolen clocks, some rare 18th century paintings and catalog cards bearing the name of the clocks and their manufacturers.

On November 18, 2008, French and Israeli police officials discovered 43 more stolen timepieces in two bank safes in France. Of the 106 rare timepieces stolen in 1983, 96 have now been recovered.

On April 3, 2010, Shomrat was sentenced to 300 hours of community service and given a five-year suspended sentence for possession of stolen property.

Contemporary Arab art

In 2008, a group exhibit of contemporary Arab art opened at L.A. Mayer Institute, the first show of local Arab art in an Israeli museum and the first to be mounted by an Arab curator. Thirteen Arab artists participated in the show.

External links

• L.A. Mayer Institute for Islamic Art
• Museum for Islamic Art at ilMuseums.com