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拍品专文
The inscription around the body reads mimma 'umila bi rasm al-maqarr al-ashraf al-karim al-'ali al-mawl awi al-amiri al-kabiri al-maliki al-majdi wa al-humami (That which was made for His Excellency, the Highly, the Noble, the August, the Lordly one, the Amir, the Great, the Royal, the Glorious, the Generous)
The inscription around the rim reads al-maqarr al-ashraf al-karim al-'ali al-mawlawi al-amiri al-kabiri al-maliki al-'alimi al-'amili al-madji al-humami al-mujahi bi al-murabiti, (His Excellency, the Highly, the Noble, the August, the Amir, the Great, the Royal, the Learned, the Virtuous, the Generous, the Holy Warrior, the Defender).
The blazons of our basin are similar to the blazons found on a very fine and impressive basin attributed to the period of Sultan Qansuh al-Ghuri and which sold at Christie's, 26 April 2012, lot 131.
Al-Ashraf Qansuh al-Ghuri (r.1501-16) was the penultimate Mamluk sultan and metalwork from his reign. The Islamic Art Museum in Cairo has three mosque lamps from his madrasa which was founded in AH 909/1503 AD and a dish dated AH 922/1516 AD (Gaston Wiet, Catalogue Géné ral du Musée Arabe du Caire, Cairo, 1932, nos.239, 508 and 3169, pls.XX-XXI, XIX and LVI, pp.28-29, 37-40 and 76-77). The Topkapi has a lamp and the Harari Collection another dish (Wiet, op.cit., no.24).
The form of this basin is familiar: it is found in numerous Mamluk examples. The decoration on the other hand is unusual. It relates very closely to that of so called Veneto-Saracenic metalwork, which is characterized by extreme finess and dense small-scale designs. Combining this distinctive decoration with a classic Mamluk shape and blazons provides compelling support for the argument that Veneto-Saracenic was produced in Egypt or Syria, rather than by Muslim craftsmen settled in Venice.
Other basins were decorated in a style akin to that of conventional Veneto-Saracenic ware, including a number which are European in form. All have the same engraved patterns with a sequence of curved cartouches of alternating format with stylized flowers in the background. Related examples, although finer are: a basin in the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Lyon (Rémi Labrusse, Islamophilies. L'Europe moderne et les arts de l'Islam, exhibition catalogue, Paris, 2011, cat.358, p.354), another, though of shallower form and without the wide flaring rim, in the Poldi Pezzoli Museum in Milan (inv.1657, published in Doris Behrens-Abouseif, 'Veneto-Saracenic Metalware, a Mamluk Art', Mamluk Studies Review, vol.9, no.2, Chicago, 2005, fig.4, pp.149 and 162) and the basin in the name of Qansuh al-Ghuri mentioned above and which sold at Christie's in 2012. In her discussion of the Lyon and the Milan basins, Behrens-Abouseif writes that they could have been produced by the same hand as the a Veneto-Saracenic jug, of very European form, also in the Poldi Pezzoli Museum (inv.1656, Behrens-Abouseif, op.cit., fig.5, pp.149 and 163).
The lack of gold or silver-inlay on 15th century metalwork is generally explained by the world shortage of precious metals at the time, but Esin Atil writes that a new style of decoration was becoming increasingly popular at the time - objects were being incised with a sharp tool and a black bituminous material was being applied to the sunken areas of the background such as on the present example (Esin Atil, Renaissance of Islam, Art of the Mamluks, exhibition catalogue, Washington D.C., 1981, no.26, pp.88-89). Familiar also in silver and gold-inlaid metalwork, when used alone on brass the bitumen created a feeling of depth, and the practice became predominant in the ensuing years, replacing the technique of inlaid metalwork (Atil, op.cit., p.101).
The inscription around the rim reads al-maqarr al-ashraf al-karim al-'ali al-mawlawi al-amiri al-kabiri al-maliki al-'alimi al-'amili al-madji al-humami al-mujahi bi al-murabiti, (His Excellency, the Highly, the Noble, the August, the Amir, the Great, the Royal, the Learned, the Virtuous, the Generous, the Holy Warrior, the Defender).
The blazons of our basin are similar to the blazons found on a very fine and impressive basin attributed to the period of Sultan Qansuh al-Ghuri and which sold at Christie's, 26 April 2012, lot 131.
Al-Ashraf Qansuh al-Ghuri (r.1501-16) was the penultimate Mamluk sultan and metalwork from his reign. The Islamic Art Museum in Cairo has three mosque lamps from his madrasa which was founded in AH 909/1503 AD and a dish dated AH 922/1516 AD (Gaston Wiet, Catalogue Géné ral du Musée Arabe du Caire, Cairo, 1932, nos.239, 508 and 3169, pls.XX-XXI, XIX and LVI, pp.28-29, 37-40 and 76-77). The Topkapi has a lamp and the Harari Collection another dish (Wiet, op.cit., no.24).
The form of this basin is familiar: it is found in numerous Mamluk examples. The decoration on the other hand is unusual. It relates very closely to that of so called Veneto-Saracenic metalwork, which is characterized by extreme finess and dense small-scale designs. Combining this distinctive decoration with a classic Mamluk shape and blazons provides compelling support for the argument that Veneto-Saracenic was produced in Egypt or Syria, rather than by Muslim craftsmen settled in Venice.
Other basins were decorated in a style akin to that of conventional Veneto-Saracenic ware, including a number which are European in form. All have the same engraved patterns with a sequence of curved cartouches of alternating format with stylized flowers in the background. Related examples, although finer are: a basin in the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Lyon (Rémi Labrusse, Islamophilies. L'Europe moderne et les arts de l'Islam, exhibition catalogue, Paris, 2011, cat.358, p.354), another, though of shallower form and without the wide flaring rim, in the Poldi Pezzoli Museum in Milan (inv.1657, published in Doris Behrens-Abouseif, 'Veneto-Saracenic Metalware, a Mamluk Art', Mamluk Studies Review, vol.9, no.2, Chicago, 2005, fig.4, pp.149 and 162) and the basin in the name of Qansuh al-Ghuri mentioned above and which sold at Christie's in 2012. In her discussion of the Lyon and the Milan basins, Behrens-Abouseif writes that they could have been produced by the same hand as the a Veneto-Saracenic jug, of very European form, also in the Poldi Pezzoli Museum (inv.1656, Behrens-Abouseif, op.cit., fig.5, pp.149 and 163).
The lack of gold or silver-inlay on 15th century metalwork is generally explained by the world shortage of precious metals at the time, but Esin Atil writes that a new style of decoration was becoming increasingly popular at the time - objects were being incised with a sharp tool and a black bituminous material was being applied to the sunken areas of the background such as on the present example (Esin Atil, Renaissance of Islam, Art of the Mamluks, exhibition catalogue, Washington D.C., 1981, no.26, pp.88-89). Familiar also in silver and gold-inlaid metalwork, when used alone on brass the bitumen created a feeling of depth, and the practice became predominant in the ensuing years, replacing the technique of inlaid metalwork (Atil, op.cit., p.101).