拍品专文
This scribe's cabinet can be paralleled with the lavish doors of the Pavilion of Sultan Murad III dated circa 1579. They display two long inlaid panels with similar compositions of polygons framed by bands of zigzags, inlaid with a same combination of tortoiseshell, mother-of-pearl and ivory (David J. Roxburgh, Turks, exhibition catalogue, London, 2005, cat.376, p.374). The earliest appearance of tortoiseshell in Ottoman art appears to be on a bookbinding dated circa 1560 and is widely used after the third quarter of the 16th century (Esin Atil, The Age of Sultan Suleyman the Magnificent, exhibition catalogue, Washington, 1987, cat.49a). The combination of tortoiseshell with mother-of-pearl becomes extremely popular by 1600. A similar scribe's cabinet on bracket feet is in the Louvre (L'Art du livre arabe, exhibition catalogue, Paris, 2002, cat.53, p.82) and a further example was sold in these Rooms, 21 June 2000, lot 87.