NORTH EAST IRAN, 12TH CENTURY

Details

A KHORASSAN BRONZE OIL LAMP
NORTH EAST IRAN, 12TH CENTURY
Of unusual feline form with long tail resting on top of loop handle, the face with highly stylised engraved features and spout extending from the mouth, hinged lid on top of the back with smaller feline standing on top, engraved decoration on the legs and band around the lid with scrolling arabesques, green patination with small areas of red remaining
5¾in. (14.6cm.) long

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Lot Essay

Two similar but somewhat cruder examples of oil lamps in the form of quadrupeds are in the Bumiller Collection (Monica Dahncke, Frühislamische Bronze-Öllampen und ihre Typologie, Bumiller collection vol.2, Bamberg, 1992, pls.87 and 88, pp.166-7). Further examples are in the L. A. Mayer Memorial Museum, Jerusalem (Eva Baer, Metalwork in Medieval Islamic Art, Albany, 1983, pl.20, p.30), in the Keir Collection (Geza Fehérvári, Islamic Metalwork of the Eighth to the Fifteenth Century in the Keir Collection, London, 1978, no.108, p.88 and and pl.36b), and in the Louvre Museum, Paris (L'etrange et le Merveilleux en terres d'Islam, exhibition catalogue, Paris, 2001, p.66).

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