Ettinghausen, Elizabeth Sgalitzer

Full Name: Ettinghausen, Elizabeth Sgalitzer

Other Names:

• Elizabeth Sgalitzer Ettinghausen
• Elizabeth Sgalitzer
• Elizabeth Ettinghausen

Gender: female

Date Born: 05 August 1918

Date Died: 12 June 2016

Place Born: Vienna, Vienna state, Austria

Place Died: Princeton, Mercer, NJ, USA

Home Country/ies: Austria and United States

Subject Area(s): Byzantine (culture or style)

Overview

Islamic and Byzantine art scholar. Elizabeth Sgalitzer was born in Vienna, the daughter of radiologist Max Sgalitzer (1884–1973, and Helene Adler (Sgalitzer) (1890-1972). She entered the University of Vienna in 1936. However, the annexation (Anschluss) of Austria by Germany and its antisemitic Nazi government forced her to leave school her second year because she was a Jew.  Sgalitzer and her family fled to Istanbul by way of Turkey to her father taught at the University of Istanbul.  She continued her studies at Istanbul University, earning her doctorate in 1943, her dissertation titled “Akdeniz havzası dışındaki kavimlerin plâstik eserlerinde portre ve birkaç cepheden görünüş” (Portrait and Multiperspectivity in Sculpture Outside the Mediterranean Circle). She moved to the United States and Washington, D.C., where she worked as a fellow at Harvard’s Dumbarton Oaks, a research institute for Byzantine studies. In 1945, she married Richard Ettinghausen, a prominent art historian specializing in Islamic art. Together, their publications contributed significantly to the field.  Richard served as Curator of Near Eastern Art at the Freer Gallery of Art and later at at New York University as Hagop Kevorkian Professor of Islamic Art

In 1967, Elizabeth and her husband moved to Princeton, New Jersey, where he received an appointment in the Department of Art.  Once again she took on the role of independent scholar and lecturer on Islamic and Byzantine art. She curated the 1970 exhibition “The Near Eastern City Since 1800” at the Princeton University Art Museum and participated in archaeological excavations in Aphrodisias, Turkey, under the auspices of the German Archaeological Institute and New York University.

Throughout her career, Elizabeth Sgalitzer Ettinghausen collaborated with notable art historians and institutions, including her husband Richard Ettinghausen, Dumbarton Oaks, the Freer Gallery of Art, the Princeton University Art Museum, and the German Archaeological Institute. She was also a member of the Visiting Committee of the Department of Islamic Art at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where her husband served as director.  In 2009 she returned to the University of Vienna and taught a class in Byzantine art.  She died on June 12, 2016, in Princeton, New Jersey .

Selected Bibliography

• [dissertation:] Akdeniz havzası dışındaki kavimlerin plâstik eserlerinde portre ve birkaç cepheden görünüş. Istanbul: Cumhuriyet Matbaası, Istanbul 1943
• “Byzantine Tiles in the Basilica in the Topkapu Sarayı and Saint John of Studios.”  Cahiers archéologiques 7 (1954):  79‒88.
• “Of Lotus Blossoms and Palmettes (an Architectural Component of Iznik Border Tiles).”  Birinci Milletlerarası Türk Çini ve Seramik Kongresi ‒ bildirilerin Türkçe özeti. Kütahya, Turkey, Istanbul, 1986, pp.  85‒104.
• “Paradisiac Symbolism in Ottoman Decoration.”  9. Milletlerarası Türk Sanatları Kongresi, bildiriler. Summary of Contributions. 2, Ankara 1995, pp.  103‒115.
• “Woven in Stone and Brick: Decorative Programs in Seljuk Architecture and Their Symbolic Value.” in, Déroche, François, ed., Art Turc: 10e Congrès international d’art turc, Genève, 17-23 Septembre 1995: Actes/Turkish Art: 10th International Congress of Turkish Art, Geneva, 17-23 September 1995: Proceedings. Geneva: Fondation Max Van Berchem, 1999, pp. 17‒23, and  Actes-Proceedings, pp. 315‒325.
• “The Phenomenon of ‘foreign’ in Oriental Art.” in,Hagedorn,  Annette, ed.: The Phenomenon of “foreign” in Oriental Art. Wiesbaden: Reichert, 2006, pp. 11‒13.
• “Analysing a Pictorial Narrative: the Aquamanile in the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg.” in, Hagedorn, Annette, and Shalem, Avinoam, eds. Facts and Artefacts: Art in the Islamic World: Festschrift for Jens Kröger on his 65th Birthday. Leiden: Brill, 2007, pp. 129‒159.

Sources

• • [obituary:] Heidemann, Stefan. “Elizabeth Sgalitzer Ettinghausen. In: Der Islam 94 (2017): 1–4.
  • “Elisabeth Sgalitzer (verh. Elizabeth S. Ettinghausen).” Memorial Book of Victims of National Socialism at the University of Vienna 1938.  Universität Wein. https://gedenkbuch.univie.ac.at/en/person/elisabeth-sgalitzer-verh-elizabeth-s-ettinghausen?utm_source=chatgpt.com
  • “Max Sgalitzer.” Memorial Book of Victims of National Socialism at the University of Vienna 1938.  Universität Wein. https://gedenkbuch.univie.ac.at/en/person/max-sgalitzer
  • Bühl, Gudrun “Oral History Interview with Elizabeth Sgalitzer Ettinghausen,” Dumbarton Oaks, 22. September 2009.