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Lot Essay
The arrangement of a triangular box base with three feline forequarters at the corners is found on a small number of objects that have been assumed to be tripod stands. One is in the Louvre museum (L'Islam dans les collections nationaux, exhibition catalogue, Paris, 1977, no.379), two were sold at Sotheby's, London (25 April 1990, lots 97 and 98, the second one again 27 April 1995, lot 65), and an unpublished example is in a private European collection. The present example calls that suggested use into question; it would obviously be impossible to use this as a tripod stand. The present example is pierced, as was the first of the Sotheby's ones, but the other is not, so a variant on an incense burner or censer is also not possible. The feet on the present example are considerably more perfunctory than those of the other two, indicating that possibly we should not look for all to have the same function.