EGYPT, CIRCA 1296-99 AD, FROM THE MOSQUE OF IBN TULUN, CAIRO

This octagonal panel is identical to the minbar panel in the David Collection (Folsach, K.: Islamic Art, Copenhagen, 1990, no.292) and almost identical to the panel in the Museo Nazionale del Bargello, Florence, no. 1407/C (Curatola, G.: Eredità dell'Islam, Italy, 1993, no. 167). Both of these almost certainly come from the minbar that Sultan al-Mansur Husam al-Din Lajin (1296-99) had made for the mosque of Ibn Tulun in Cairo in 1296. Sections of the minbar itself are conserved at the Victoria and Albert Museum, the Louvre and at the Museum fr angewandte Kunst, Vienna (Sarre, F. and Martin, F.R.: Meisterwerken Muhammedanischer Kunst, Munich, 1910, pl.249).