A FINE SAFAVID DAMASCENED STEEL PANEL, the flat steel plate cut with a cusped base rising to a cusped trefoil panel, the obverse originally of blued steel superbly damascened in gold with palmettes, flowerheads and scrolling vine around the naskh invocation 'ya basit' (O generous one), within a simple gold band border, the reverse covered with plain silver sheet, two attachment tangs below and similar roundel above 16th/17th century (slight corrosion)

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A FINE SAFAVID DAMASCENED STEEL PANEL, the flat steel plate cut with a cusped base rising to a cusped trefoil panel, the obverse originally of blued steel superbly damascened in gold with palmettes, flowerheads and scrolling vine around the naskh invocation 'ya basit' (O generous one), within a simple gold band border, the reverse covered with plain silver sheet, two attachment tangs below and similar roundel above 16th/17th century (slight corrosion)
7 5/8in. (19.4cm.) high

Lot Essay

Ten other examples of these have been published. Four were on the London art market in 1981 (Fehervari,G and Safadi, Y.H.: 1400 years of Islamic Art, Khalili Gallery, London 1981, nos. 54a-d), four others are in the Linden Museum Stuttgart (Kalter, J.: Linden-Museum Stuttgart - Abteilungsführer, Islamic Art, Stuttgart 1987, p.29, fig.25) while a futher two were in these rooms (20 October 1992, lots 159 and 160). A futher unpublished group is in the al-Sabah Collection, Kuwait. Each contains one of the one hundred names of God. It seems probable that the group formed an upper decorative feature on a Safavid shrine, a theory supported by the small lugs at the base of each

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