EGYPT, EARLY 14TH CENTURY

This panel comes from one of the highly detailed minbars produced under the Mamluks. The arabesques with very long leaves that are to be seem on this finely carved minbar panel are to be found in profusion in the wood carving of the minbar of the mosque of Al-Nasfi Qaisun in Cairo of 730/1329. This mosque was constructed under the reign of Sultan al-Malik al-Nasir, by Al-Nasfi Qaisun, who was probably an amir. (Prisse d'Avennes, E.: Arab Art, London, 1983, p.107, Pl.85-6) Prisse d'Avennes, who was doing his research and drawings in the 1860s notes that the mosque had fallen into a very bad state of repair, although the minbar was still in place. He says that the exterior had been completely painted and gilded and that it had lost its back.