Doris Duke and Mary Crane: Collecting Islamic art for Shangri La, a Hawaiian hideaway home.

This article focuses on Doris Duke's extensive collecting of Islamic art for her Hawaiian estate, Shangri La, highlighting her collaboration with Mary Crane, a young Islamic art scholar and buyer. Through their correspondence from 1940–41, the article reveals Duke's collecting practices, her preference for privacy, and the complex network of dealers, restorers, and experts involved in acquiring and installing works, including the centerpiece thirteenth-century Persian mihrab from Kashan, Iran. The letters illustrate Duke's aesthetic-driven approach, emphasizing beauty over historical or religious context, and situate her collecting within broader patterns of twentieth-century American Orientalism and art patronage. The study also maps the New York Islamic art market of the era and considers Duke's role as both collector and creator of a private, exoticized environment.