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Lot Essay
The inscription is from the Qur'an sura Taha XX, v.10 (part).
These three fragments are probably part of a wooden frieze that would have run around the interior of a mosque or madrassa. In style they are related to some tie beams in the al-Hakim mosque in Cairo dated to the first quarter of the 11th century.
They are related to a beam sold in these rooms, April 23 2002, lot 141. In common with the present lot, the beam was also drilled with holes probably for wooden dowls for fixing the beam in place.
Other similar published Fatimid wooden beams with kufic inscriptions against a floral ground are:
A section of a frieze in the Museum of Islamic Art in Cairo, dateable to the 11th to 12th century (The Art of Islam, Hayward Gallery, 1976, no. 445, p.286) and other panels in the same musem in the name of al-Hafiz (AH 541/1145-6 AD) in Catalogue du musée arabe, Les bois a épigraphes jusqu'a l'époque mamlouke, Caire 1931, pl. XV.
Panels in the University of Michigan of the first half of the 12th century, Ars Islamica, Michigan, Vol. VI, Pt. 1, pp. 93-5.
As Carl Johann Lamm has pointed out, the woodwork of Fatimid Egypt is of paramount importance in understanding the art of the period. Wood was, of course, a rare material in North Africa, and the carving of the period that survives is usually of very high quality.
Lamm, C.J.: Fatimid woodwork, its style and chronology, 1935-6, pp. 59-91.
These three fragments are probably part of a wooden frieze that would have run around the interior of a mosque or madrassa. In style they are related to some tie beams in the al-Hakim mosque in Cairo dated to the first quarter of the 11th century.
They are related to a beam sold in these rooms, April 23 2002, lot 141. In common with the present lot, the beam was also drilled with holes probably for wooden dowls for fixing the beam in place.
Other similar published Fatimid wooden beams with kufic inscriptions against a floral ground are:
A section of a frieze in the Museum of Islamic Art in Cairo, dateable to the 11th to 12th century (The Art of Islam, Hayward Gallery, 1976, no. 445, p.286) and other panels in the same musem in the name of al-Hafiz (AH 541/1145-6 AD) in Catalogue du musée arabe, Les bois a épigraphes jusqu'a l'époque mamlouke, Caire 1931, pl. XV.
Panels in the University of Michigan of the first half of the 12th century, Ars Islamica, Michigan, Vol. VI, Pt. 1, pp. 93-5.
As Carl Johann Lamm has pointed out, the woodwork of Fatimid Egypt is of paramount importance in understanding the art of the period. Wood was, of course, a rare material in North Africa, and the carving of the period that survives is usually of very high quality.
Lamm, C.J.: Fatimid woodwork, its style and chronology, 1935-6, pp. 59-91.