PROBABLY SYRIA, LATE 15TH OR 16TH CENTURY

A cylindrical lidded box in the National Museums of Scotland collection has very similar engraved scrolling vine decoration to our own example, (inv. 1880 13-3, 3a, Sylvia Auld, Renaissance Venice, Islam and Mahmud the Kurd. A Metalworking Enigma, 2004, no. 3.5, p. 202). Auld attributes this type of vessel to late 15th or early 16th century. Doris Behrens- Abouseif considers that the dense knot-work design found on this box to be a particular motif common in later Mamluk metalwork and attributes the group to Syria, (Doris Behrens-Abouseif, 'Veneto-Saracenic Metalware, a Mamluk Art', in Mamluk Studies Review, vol. IX/2 , Chicago, 2005, p. 148).