HERAT, EARLY 13TH CENTURY

This panel and those in the two following lots all show characteristics shared by carved panels which decorated the Mausoleum of the Ghurid Sultan Ghiyath al-Din which was constructed in the early 13th Century, (Robert Hillenbrand, 'The Ghurid Tomb at Herat', in Warwick Ball and Leonard Harrow ed. Cairo to Kabul: Afghan and Islamic Studies presented to Ralph Pinder-Wilson, London, 2002). In particular the inscription band on the interior of the east bay with its distinctive terminals is very similar to our own calligraphic panel, (Hillenbrand, op.cit. pl. 12.18, p. 137). The Mausoleum itself was unfortunately demolished in the 1950s and is only recorded in a few photographs taken in the first half of the 20th Century.