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Lot Essay
The main band of inscription reads:
al-maqarr al-karim al-'ali al-mawlawi al-amiri al-'alimi al-'amili al-afzali al-akmali al-sayyedi al-maaliki al-maliki al-nasiri (the honourable authority, the high, the lordly, the emir, the learned, the diligent, the most excellent, the most perfect, the master, the posessor [the officer of] al-Malik al-Nasir).
The inscription around the mouth is identical but stops after al-akmali.
What can be read of the inscription around the shoulder shows it to contain extended similar phrases which have in two places been crudely overwritten by a later owner, one 'Abdullah.
Two terms in this inscription are rare to find in Mamluk honorific titulature: al-afzali and al-akmali. In his catalogue of the metalwork in the Cairo Museum, both of these terms only appear once; both on the same fragmentary dish in the name of the amir Shadbak, a mamluk of Yashbak, who the inscription also describes as a sayyed. Apparently this fragment however can be dated to the late Mamluk period, and thus cannot be for the same patron as the present candlestick.
The silver inlay of the rosette on the interior under the stem is most unusual to find decorated in this way.
al-maqarr al-karim al-'ali al-mawlawi al-amiri al-'alimi al-'amili al-afzali al-akmali al-sayyedi al-maaliki al-maliki al-nasiri (the honourable authority, the high, the lordly, the emir, the learned, the diligent, the most excellent, the most perfect, the master, the posessor [the officer of] al-Malik al-Nasir).
The inscription around the mouth is identical but stops after al-akmali.
What can be read of the inscription around the shoulder shows it to contain extended similar phrases which have in two places been crudely overwritten by a later owner, one 'Abdullah.
Two terms in this inscription are rare to find in Mamluk honorific titulature: al-afzali and al-akmali. In his catalogue of the metalwork in the Cairo Museum, both of these terms only appear once; both on the same fragmentary dish in the name of the amir Shadbak, a mamluk of Yashbak, who the inscription also describes as a sayyed. Apparently this fragment however can be dated to the late Mamluk period, and thus cannot be for the same patron as the present candlestick.
The silver inlay of the rosette on the interior under the stem is most unusual to find decorated in this way.