#RübelAsiaticResearchCollection

In 1978, the Rübel Asiatic Research Collection became part of the Fine Arts Library. Langdon Warner, an archaeologist and historian specializing in East Asian art, was the first professor of Asian art history at Harvard and the Curator of Oriental Art in the Fogg Art Museum. Warner traveled to Asia numerous times, among them an 1913-14 trip sponsored by the Smithsonian Institution to explore the possibility of founding an American School of Chinese Archaeology in Beijing. [1] In 1923 and 1925, the Fogg Museum sent Warner to western China. These expeditions have become controversial due to the removal of antiquities. The Rübel Asiatic Research Bureau was established in 1927 with the opening of the Fogg Art Museum. Warner donated books and photographs from his personal collection to the Bureau, which served as the curatorial library of the Oriental Art Department. The Bureau was further strengthened by Boston businessman and Harvard alumnus, C. Adrian Rübel, who established a dedicated fund for the purchase of Asian books and art materials. In 1978, the Bureau was integrated into the Fine Arts Library, and its official name was changed to the Rübel Asiatic Research Collection. Today, the Rübel Collection includes approximately 65,000 volumes devoted to the history of Asian art, focusing on the art, architecture, and archaeology of China, Japan, Korea, Central Asia, Southeast Asia, and India. In 1979, the Documentation Center of the Aga Khan Program was established at the Fine Arts Library, a part of the Aga Khan Program for Islamic Architecture at Harvard and MIT, funded by a gift from H.H. the Aga Khan to support teaching and research on the history of art and architecture in Islamic societies. Since then, the Fine Arts Library has been building comprehensive collections that combine visual and printed documentation in all languages and formats on the art, architecture, archaeology, and epigraphy of the Islamic world. The Middle East and Islamic Photographs include more than 150,000 photographs and slides documenting Islamic art and architecture, as well as ethnographic views, plans, and maps. Former librarian for Islamic Art and Architecture, András Riedlmayer cataloged years of cultural heritage destruction by Serbian nationalists in the Balkans in the 1990s and testified before the U.N. a decade later. Riedlmayer donated some of the burned books he collected from the Balkans to the Aga Khan Program at the Fine Arts Library. [1] Langdon Warner. Smithsonian National Museum of Asian Art website: https://asia.si.edu/research/archives/search/ead_collection:sova-fsa-a1994-07/