A gilded and enamelled glass mosque lamp with suspension ball, Middle East, probably Egypt, 18th/19th century

inscriptions

Around the body:

‘Glory to our Lord, the Sultan al-Malik al-Zahir Abu Sa‘id, may God make him victorious’

Around the neck:

Qur'an, chapter XXIV (al-Nur), part of verse 35

In the roundels on the neck:

‘Glory to our lord, the Sultan … al-Zahir, may (God) glorify his victory’

The present glass mosque lamp was most probably produced in Egypt in the nineteenth century, in the style of Mamluk mosque lamps from the early fourteenth century. Although several Mamluk sultans used the title al-malik al-zahir, the reference to Abu Sa'id on this inscription fits only one recorded Burji Mamluk ruler, al-Zahir Abu Sa'id Jaqmaq, who reigned from 1438-53. A Mamluk mosque lamp attributed to the Sultan Barquq period with a similar inscription was sold at Christie's as part of the collection of the late Baroness Batsheva de Rothschild, 14 December 2000, lot 17. Nearly forty lamps are known to have been made for Sultan Barquq's complex in Cairo, completed in 1386, which included a mosque, madrasa (religious school), khanqah and mausoleum. The majority of the lamps produced for Sultan Barquq as well as for his predecessor, Sultan Hasan (r.1347-51 and r.1354-61) are now in the Museum of Islamic Art, Cairo (see G. Wiet, Catalogue général du musée arabe du Caire, Lampes et bouteilles en verre émaillé, Cairo, 1929).

The present mosque lamp appears to belong to a group of enamelled and gilded mosque lamps of a later date whose exact place and date of origin is yet to be determined. Whilst it is not medieval Mamluk (as evidenced by a scientific report on the enamels and glass), nor is it part of the late European 'revivalist' tradition of enamelled glass, distinguishable by its highly decorative and complex finely-applied designs. This mosque lamp, on the other hand, is likely to belong to an earlier and more indigenous kind of revival-ware, one probably synopsis being that the mosque lamps of this group were intended as replacements for those in disrepair in the mosques of Cairo or Damascus, and are more than likely to have been made in Egypt. Another lamp that falls into this group was sold in these rooms, 8 October 2008, lot 111.