Winged Genie Fertilizing a Date Tree
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This scene shows a winged jinni (Romanization of the Arabic word جن (jann), also called genie in English) fertilizing a stylized date tree, a vital crop in Assyria. A fitting scene for the palace of King Ashurnassirpal II (Ash-ur-NAS-ir-pal) since producing fruit was seen as a divine act. The jinni's exaggerated muscles symbolize strength, and an inscription celebrates Ashurnassirpal's conquests under divine favor.
The Assyrian Empire was one of the largest kingdoms of the ancient Near East, located across present-day Turkey, Iraq, and Egypt. The detail and precision seen in the wings, hair, and garment are an example of Near Eastern artistic style.
Room L, Palace of Ashurnasirpal II, Nimrud [1];
Sir Henry Creswicke Rawlinson (1810-1895), Consul-General, Baghdad, by 1855;
His gift to the Reverend Dwight Whitney Marsh, Mosul, by July 23, 1855;
His gift to the St. Louis Mercantile Library, St. Louis, MO, July 23, 1855-1940 [2];
Purchased from the St. Louis Mercantile Library by The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, 1940.
NOTES:
[1] Janusz Meuszyński, “Die Rekonstruktion der Reliefdarstellungen und ihrer Anordnung im Nordwestpalast von Kalhu (Nimrūd),” Baghdader Forschungen 2 (Manz am Rhein: Verlag Philipp von Zabern, 1981), 67.
[2] Clarence E. Miller wrote in Forty years of long ago: early annals of the Mercantile Library Association and its Public Hall, 1846-1886 : “This slab was the gift of the Rev. Dwight W. Marsh, American missionary at Mosul, who presented it at the suggestion of his brother Calvin Marsh, a member of the library at the time.” The relief’s arrival in St. Louis was described in the Daily Morning News, March 12, 1857: “The steamboat ‘Wm. M. Morrison,’ from New Orleans, brought up to this city, a few days ago, some relics of the ancient Assyrian Empire exhumed from the ruins of Nineveh which are among the most interesting curiosities in this city, and among the rarest in this country. They are the property of the St. Louis Mercantile Library Association, were sent by Ren. Dwight W. Marsh, missionary at Mosul, in Asiatic Turkey…. These curiosities left Mosul…on the 23rd of July 1855, with a caravan of 1,000 camels, for Aleppo.”
Daily Evening News, March 12, 1857.
Clarence E. Miller, Forty Years of Long Ago: Early Annals of the Mercantile Library Association and Its Public Hall, 1846-1886 ([St. Louis?]: [St. Louis Mercantile Library], [1931]).
Town Pictorial Kansas City, January 9, 1948, front page.
The William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, The William Rockhill Nelson Collection, 3rd ed. (Kansas City, MO: William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, 1949), 31.
Ross E. Taggart, ed., Handbook of the Collections in the William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, 4th ed. (Kansas City, MO: William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, 1959), 11.
John B. Stearns, Reliefs from the Palace of Ashurnasirpal II, Archiv für Orientforschung, Beiheft 15 (Graz: 1961), 29, (A-II-a-i-13), 63, plate 17.
Ross E. Taggart and George L. McKenna, eds., Handbook of the Collections in The William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, Kansas City, Missouri, vol. 1, Art of the Occident, 5th ed. (Kansas City, MO: William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, 1973), 15.
Samuel M. Paley, King of the World: Ashurnasirpal II of Assyria, 883-859 B.C. (Brooklyn, New York: Brooklyn Museum, 1976), 63.
S. Lane Faison, Jr., Williams College Museum of Art, Handbook of the Collection (Williamstown, MA, 1979), no. 2.
Janusz Meuszyński, Die Rekonstruktion der Reliefdarstellungen und ihrer Anordnung im Nordwestpalast von Kalhu (Nimrūd), Baghdader Forschungen, Band 2 (Manz am Rhein: Verlag Philipp von Zabern, 1981), 67, no. L-10.
Ellen R. Goheen, The Collections of the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art (New York: Harry N.
Abrams, 1988), 18-19, fig. 1.
Roger Ward and Patricia J. Fidler, eds., The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art: A Handbook of the Collection (New York: Hudson Hills Press, in association with Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 1993), 108.
Barbara Porter, “Winged Genie Fertilizing a Tree: Seasonal Tome and Eternity in Ancient Assyria,” in Tempus Fugit, Time Flies, ed. Jan Schall, exh. cat. (Kansas City: Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 2000), 213-18, fig. II.1.
Deborah Emont Scott, ed., The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art: A Handbook of the Collection, 7th ed. (Kansas City, MO: Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 2008), 5, fig. 5.
Ada Cohen and Steven E. Kangas, Assyrian Reliefs from the Palace of Ashurnasirpal II: A Cultural Biography (Hanover, NH: Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, 2010), 82.
