SOUTH IRAN, PROBABLY SHIRAZ, 14TH CENTURY

Details

AN ILKHANID CANDLESTICK BASE
SOUTH IRAN, PROBABLY SHIRAZ, 14TH CENTURY
Of tapering cylindrical form rising from slightly spread foot to pronounced flat shoulder, the body inlaid with a series of roundels containing figures, fighting dogs, hunting birds, reading and writing, alternating with cusped cartouches containing pairs of birds, the interstices filled with dense silver-inlaid leafy plants, vine border above, rope-pattern and meandering flowering vine border below, similar border around the rim enclosing kufic inscription, damage to lower border and inlay, shoulder rubbed
4¼in. (10.8cm.) high

Special notice

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Lot Essay

It is rare to find figural depictions with the verve of those seen here, and also unusual for the ground on which they are placed to be as freely floral. Only the Western Islamic metalworkers seem to have loosened their structural approach to this extent. A similar ground is seen on a larger candlestick formerly in the Harari collection (Arthur Upham Pope, A Survey of Persian Art, Oxford and London, 1938, pl. 1371), also on a second in the Royal Scottish Museum, Edinburgh (Eva Baer, Metalwork in Medieval Islamic Art, New York, 1983, pl. 130, p. 155). The former example is signed by Muhammad b. Raf(i') al-Din Shirazi and dated to 1360. The latter has the vigorous figures seen here.

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