Claremont Coptic Encyclopedia 15 March 2023
gayet, albert (1856–1916): life and works
Nancy Arthur Hoskins Keywords: Albert Gayet, Albert Jean Marie Phillippe Gayet, Gaston Maspero, Émile Étienne Guimet, Musée Guimet, Musée du Louvre, Antinoöpolis, Antinoé, Coptic textiles, Coptic tapestries, Coptic art, Late Antique textiles, Fauve Art, Henri Matisse, Thaïs.
Albert Gayet, originally named Jean Marie Phillippe Albert Gayet, was born 17 September 1856, in Dijon, France to Antoine Gayet and Claudine Émélie Flessière (Hoskins 2004: 5). He died on 9 May 1916 and is buried in Dijon. Albert Gayet became known as “the archaeologist of Antinoé” and his work also contributed to Coptic studies with the 1889 publication of Les Monuments coptes du Musée du Boulaq, the first catalog on Coptic monuments (Hoskins 2004: vii) and L’art copte, published in 1902 (Hoskins 2004: 6).
Fig. 1: “Photo of Albert Gayet,” Temple of Luxor, Egypt, c. 1886–1891 (Hoskins 2004: 5; Wilbour 1936: 241). A usa Commons Public Domain image.
Education and Early Career 1856–1895 Gayet held a diploma from l’École des Hautes Études de Paris, Section d’archéologie et de philogie orientale; was a member of the Société d’archéologie du Caire; and an Archéologue lauréat du Salon. Gayet was a protégé of gaston camille charles maspero (1846–1916), the French director of the Antiquities Department of Egypt. Maspero called Gayet a “student of Christian archaeology” (Hoskins 2004: 5). In 1881, Gayet joined Maspero’s Mission © Claremont Graduate University 1 Nancy Hoskins, Albert Gayet (1856-1916): Life and Works 15 March 2023 Archéologique and by 1884 was in charge of a mission in Egypt for the Ministère de l’instruction publique et des Beaux-Arts. As a young archaeologist, Gayet copied the inscriptions at the Temple of Luxor, surveyed the Temple of Dendera, and measured dayr anba hadra at Aswan. His early archaeological projects in Egypt were published between 1886 and 1902 (Hoskins 2004: 6). Gayet’s Campaigns in Egypt Émile Étienne Guimet (1836–1918) established the Musée Guimet in Paris. He thought that the site of the ancient city of Antinoöpolis (Antinoé), which was founded by the emperor Hadrian in AD 130, would be a promising site for excavation and sponsored Gayet’s first campaign in Antinoé in March 1896.
Gayet studied the pharaonic remnants of Antinoé during his initial exploration. In the spring of 1897, Gayet worked at four cemeteries he identified as Pharaonic, Greco-Roman, Byzantine, and Coptic. He gathered the grave goods and brought back to the Musée Guimet an assortment of artifacts that the museum displayed in 1897. His discoveries in Antinoé and descriptions of the exhibited material were published by the museum that same year. This set the precedent for the long list of Gayet’s expeditions, exhibitions, and publications of Coptic art fabrics and artifacts. Guimet sponsored Gayet’s many subsequent campaigns at Antinoé, as did other French institutions. Besides Antinoé, Gayet conducted explorations at Akhmim, Sheikh-Shata, Deir-el-Dyk, and Dronkah between 1896 and 1912 (Hoskins 2004: 6–15; Calament 2005: 113–151). He claimed to have excavated 40,000 graves (Hoskins 2004: 11). Each campaign was described in publications by Gayet. He also presented public programs with females modeling faux Coptic garments.
The Exhibitions There were exhibits at the Musée Guimet in 1897, 1898, 1900, 1901, 1902, 1903, 1907, 1908, and 1912 of the grave goods from his campaigns. Archival exhibit photos show the vitrines filled with an assortment of tunics, mantles, shawls, shrouds, head coverings, leggings, shoes, socks, cushion covers, curtains, wall hangings, strips of precious silk, riding coats, mummies, mummy portraits, and woolen tapestry fragments decorated with flora, fauna, figures, geometric motifs, and narrative vignettes in polychrome and monochrome palettes. Guimet wrote, “Mr. Gayet’s archaeological deposits are of the utmost importance . . . and he has found them in such abundance that all of the museums of Europe and France have been supplied” (Rutschowscaya 1990: 16).
Gayet’s display of textiles and costumes at the 1900 Exposition universelle de Paris had an impact on the work of Henri Matisse and other Fauve artists (Rutschowscaya 1990: 20–21; Hoskins 2004: 9–10; Hoskins 2022: 134–141).
© Claremont Graduate University 2 Nancy Hoskins, Albert Gayet (1856-1916): Life and Works 15 March 2023 Gayet’s Publications Catalogs, books, and booklets (over twenty of them) were published by Gayet during his campaign years. He discovered the mummy of Thaïs during his 1900–1901 campaign and in 1902 published the story of the sinner who became a saint (Hoskins 2023)—the well-known heroine of Anatole France’s 1890 novel and Jules Massenet’s 1894 opera (Hoskins 2004: 10–12). See a list of Gayet’s publications in the Bibliography.
The Gayet Textiles The coptic textiles Gayet collected survived in the sands of Egypt after the adoption of Christian burial practices. The deceased, no longer mummified, was dressed and wrapped in clothing or domestic cloth and buried in the dry sand of the desert cemeteries. There are thought to be over 100,000 textiles from the Late Antique graves of Egypt—the majority of them gathered by Gayet. Items ranging from small fragments to complete costumes and large hangings were found in the cemeteries of Coptic Egypt. While ancient Egyptian fabrics were mostly unadorned, undyed, plain weave linens, Gayet discovered colorful dyed wool tapestries, silk samitums, and new types of cloth made into functional and decorative fabrics.
The clothes the citizens of Late Antique Egypt wore, and the textiles they used, resemble those woven and worn all over the Roman Empire. The Gayet textiles are important to the history of textiles in the Western world, and via the Silk Road they are connected to Asian fabrics of sophisticated woven silks. The segue of themes and iconography from Classical to Early Christian art can be followed in the vast repertoire of Coptic tapestry art.
A sale of Gayet’s Coptic textiles and artifacts was held at the Musée Guimet in 1901. Forty lots, some containing as many as 500 items, were sold. Textile fragments were cut from their original context, divided into lots, auctioned off, and are now in public and private collections around the world (Calament 1989: 336; Rutschowscaya 1990: 150; Hoskins 2004: 20–22; Hoskins 2023). The Gayet textiles at the Musée Guimet were given to the Musée du Louvre in 1947. Other textiles were given to the institutions that sponsored Gayet’s expeditions during his lifetime and were donated to French and other European museums. Numerous collections have been published as scholars search for and document the Late Antique textiles from Gayet’s expeditions in Egypt. Gayet, disillusioned at the end of his life, regretted the dispersion of his Antinoé artifacts and textiles, but his legacy lives on in the Gayet collections in 28 countries (De Moor, Fluck, Linscheid, and Verneulen 2022. 238).
© Claremont Graduate University 3 Nancy Hoskins, Albert Gayet (1856-1916): Life and Works 15 March 2023