MAMLUK SYRIA, PROBABLY DAMASCUS, 15TH CENTURY

Although European in shape, apart from the coat-of-arms, the decoration on these candlesticks is otherwise very Mamluk. The first has large felines alternated with coats-of-arms and a cusped cartouche containing a continuous knot. A candlestick in the British Museum has similar decoration – with animals, there hunting, surrounding a coat-of-arms (OA.1878,12-30.721; published Bellini and the East, exhibition catalogue, London, 2006, p.20, fig.5). The neck is also very similar to ours – the shaft with a quatrefoil lattice and the mouth with a band of reciprocal triangles. The coat-of-arms on that example is that of the Venetian Boldu family, and it is catalogued as Mamluk, with dates varying from 1423 (on the British Museum website) to late 15th century (London, 2006, p.20). There is a group of these small candlesticks which bear the coat-of-arms of Venetian families, and there is some debate as to whether the arms were added at source as part of a commission, or rather whether they were added when they were later sold in Italy. The lack of completion of the arms on our example suggests the latter, as does that on another example in the British Museum (OA.1878,12-30.720; published in Auld, 2004, p.259, no.6.20).

The lotus flowers that decorate the second of these candlesticks find comparison on a candlestick now in the Museo Civico Correr in Venice, also catalogued as Damascus, early 15th century (New York, 2007, p.65, cat.77).