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Lot Essay
The inscription reads bi rasm al-janab al-'ali al-mawlawi al-maliki al-dhakhiri al-af(d)ali al-ghiathi al-hamami al-nizami al-mushiri (By order of the Lofty Excellency the Lordly, the Royal, the Upholder of the needy, the Most Splendid, the Defender, the Protector of the Frontiers, the Administrator, the Counsellor).
The blazon that appears three times around the shoulder has a sword in the central of three horizontal fields. A tray-stand in the Metropolitan Museum of Art bears a similar blazon which has been identified with the Amir Bahadur al-Badri who was created governor of Homs in 1319 (L.A. Meyer, Saracenic Heraldry, Oxford, 1933, pl.38). The same blazon is used by the later Amir Baha al-Din Aslaun ('Art from the Islamic World 8th-18th century', exhibition catalogue, in Louisiana Revy, Vol.27, no.3, March 1987, no.160, p.98 and pl.p.55).
The knotted kufic inscription on the shaft, a stylistic survival from the Ayyubid period, compares with that on a candlestick made for Zayn al-Din Kitbugha, who served under Sultan Khalil (1290-93 AD) (Esin Atil, Renaissance of Islam, Art of the Mamluks, Washington, 1981, cat. no. 16, pp. 65-67). Another made for the Emir Sungur Takriti (d. 1298AD), political advisor of Sultan Malik Mansur Qala'un, has a similar band of knotted kufic (Weit, G., Catalogue Général du Musée Arabe du Caire, Objets en Cuivre, Cairo, 1932, p. 135, no 7949, pl. xxviii). These would support an early dating for our candlestick.
The blazon that appears three times around the shoulder has a sword in the central of three horizontal fields. A tray-stand in the Metropolitan Museum of Art bears a similar blazon which has been identified with the Amir Bahadur al-Badri who was created governor of Homs in 1319 (L.A. Meyer, Saracenic Heraldry, Oxford, 1933, pl.38). The same blazon is used by the later Amir Baha al-Din Aslaun ('Art from the Islamic World 8th-18th century', exhibition catalogue, in Louisiana Revy, Vol.27, no.3, March 1987, no.160, p.98 and pl.p.55).
The knotted kufic inscription on the shaft, a stylistic survival from the Ayyubid period, compares with that on a candlestick made for Zayn al-Din Kitbugha, who served under Sultan Khalil (1290-93 AD) (Esin Atil, Renaissance of Islam, Art of the Mamluks, Washington, 1981, cat. no. 16, pp. 65-67). Another made for the Emir Sungur Takriti (d. 1298AD), political advisor of Sultan Malik Mansur Qala'un, has a similar band of knotted kufic (Weit, G., Catalogue Général du Musée Arabe du Caire, Objets en Cuivre, Cairo, 1932, p. 135, no 7949, pl. xxviii). These would support an early dating for our candlestick.