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Lot Essay
Al-Ashraf Qansuh al-Ghuri (r.1501-16) was the penultimate Mamluk sultan. His reign marked the finale of Mamluk pious and artistic patronage (Doris Behrens-Abouseif, Cairo of the Mamluks: A History of the Architecture and its Culture, London 2007, p.295).
He commissioned a great number of buildings and built a commercial and residential quarter in Cairo. In that regard, he followed the footsteps of Sultan Qaytbay (r.1468-96), with a combined 230 newly built constructions and 107 building restoration projects between them as recorded by Michael Meinecke (Die mamlukische Architektur in Ägypten und Syrien, vol.II, Cairo, 1992, p.VI.). This door panel most likely used to decorate one of these buildings.
A related wooden panel is in The Museum of Islamic Art, Cairo (482), from Qaytbay's restoration of the Mosque of al-Azhar in 1495-96. The arabesques of the surrounding lobes of his blazon (nearly identical to al-Ghuri's) are very similar to ours (Bernard O'Keane, The Illustrated Guide to the Museum of Islamic Art in Cairo, Cairo 2012, p.137). Although a politically significant status symbol in Mamluk material culture, blazons were not uniformly allocated to any specific part of a building. While often located in the spandrels of a portal arch or iwan, blazons in Qaytbay's buildings also appear in window lunettes and spandrels of iwan arches (Behrens-Abouseif, op.cit., p.94). This is also found in al-Ghuri's mosque-madrasa complex from 1504. Due to the dearth in quality wood in the Mamluk territories, wood was of high value, as attested by its specific description in endowments. We know that the wood used in Qaytbay's Cairo mausuleum was sasim (sasim), teak (saj), and walnut wood (khashab juz) (Luitgard E.M. Mols, Mamluk Metalwork Fittings: In their Artistic and Architectural Context, Delft 2006, pp.147-8).
This panel was in the collection of the eminent Swiss epigraphist and scholar of Islamic architecture Max van Berchem, who studied and recorded the architecture of the late Mamluks (Max van Berchem, Matériaux pour un Corpus Inscriptionum Arabicarum. Deuxième Partie: Syria du Sud. I – Jerusalem, Cairo 1925, p.373). A 14th or 15th century Mamluk painted wooden panel from the Toledo Museum of Art was sold in these Rooms, 30 April 2026, lot 26.
He commissioned a great number of buildings and built a commercial and residential quarter in Cairo. In that regard, he followed the footsteps of Sultan Qaytbay (r.1468-96), with a combined 230 newly built constructions and 107 building restoration projects between them as recorded by Michael Meinecke (Die mamlukische Architektur in Ägypten und Syrien, vol.II, Cairo, 1992, p.VI.). This door panel most likely used to decorate one of these buildings.
A related wooden panel is in The Museum of Islamic Art, Cairo (482), from Qaytbay's restoration of the Mosque of al-Azhar in 1495-96. The arabesques of the surrounding lobes of his blazon (nearly identical to al-Ghuri's) are very similar to ours (Bernard O'Keane, The Illustrated Guide to the Museum of Islamic Art in Cairo, Cairo 2012, p.137). Although a politically significant status symbol in Mamluk material culture, blazons were not uniformly allocated to any specific part of a building. While often located in the spandrels of a portal arch or iwan, blazons in Qaytbay's buildings also appear in window lunettes and spandrels of iwan arches (Behrens-Abouseif, op.cit., p.94). This is also found in al-Ghuri's mosque-madrasa complex from 1504. Due to the dearth in quality wood in the Mamluk territories, wood was of high value, as attested by its specific description in endowments. We know that the wood used in Qaytbay's Cairo mausuleum was sasim (sasim), teak (saj), and walnut wood (khashab juz) (Luitgard E.M. Mols, Mamluk Metalwork Fittings: In their Artistic and Architectural Context, Delft 2006, pp.147-8).
This panel was in the collection of the eminent Swiss epigraphist and scholar of Islamic architecture Max van Berchem, who studied and recorded the architecture of the late Mamluks (Max van Berchem, Matériaux pour un Corpus Inscriptionum Arabicarum. Deuxième Partie: Syria du Sud. I – Jerusalem, Cairo 1925, p.373). A 14th or 15th century Mamluk painted wooden panel from the Toledo Museum of Art was sold in these Rooms, 30 April 2026, lot 26.