Arts of the Islamic World and India, including Fine Rugs and Carpets
Arts of the Islamic World and India, including Fine Rugs and Carpets
A large Mamluk tinned-copper basin made for Emir Sayf al-Din Asanbay al-Ibrahimi, officer of Sultan al-Ashraf Qaytbay (r.1468-96), Egypt or Syria, second half 15th century
Auction Closed
April 26, 01:36 PM GMT
Estimate
20,000 - 30,000 GBP
Lot Details
Description
of deep rounded form, the rim engraved with a band of alternating cartouches containing inscriptions in thuluth and scrolling arabesques, divided by alternating geometric and armorial roundels, the body engraved with a frieze of alternating geometric and arabesque vertical cartouches
38.8cm. diam.
17.1cm. height
Acquired from the above by the present owner in 2006.
inscriptions
mimma ‘umila bi-rasm al-maqarr al-ashraf al-karim al-‘ali al-mawlawi al-amiri al-sayfi hasanbay al-ibrahimi mamluk al-sultan al-malik al-ashraf qaytbay
'One of what was made for the most honourable officer, the noble, the exalted, the lordly, the amir, [Sayf al-Din] Asanbay al-Ibrahimi, mamluk of Sultan al-Malik al-Ashraf Qaytbay’
A plate bearing an almost identical inscription to the present lot is listed in Wiet 1932, pp.235-6.
This monumental bowl was produced during the reign of Sultan Qaytbay (1468-96) which marked a brief revival in the metalwork industry. Metalwork produced in the late-fifteenth and early-sixteenth centuries, prior to the Ottoman conquest in 1517, display a use of new materials combined with a persistence of existing styles. Responding to an economic decline in the fifteenth century which led to a paucity of gold and silver on the market, Mamluk artists were inclined to use less expensive materials such as copper (Atil 1981, p.107). Despite the change in material, the artists were no less skilled in their commissions and produced tinned copper ware, such as the present bowl, filled with finely worked repeated ornamental registers.
The decorative scheme was clearly favoured by people of high and noble rank and like the present example, there exists a number of works produced for Mamluk Emirs, such as a bowl in the Museum of Islamic Art, Cairo produced for Amir Qasrawah (see Wiet 1932, pl.XLV). The monumental size and organisation of the decoration of this bowl is closely comparable to the Cairo example, although our bowl includes a further register of engraved cartouches beneath the inscription frieze.
Importantly, the inscription on this bowl includes the name of Sultan Qaytbay, and the Emir for which it was commissioned is described as a mamluk of the Sultan, allowing the bowl to be situated within his reign. An early fifteenth-century tinned-copper plate made for Sultan al-Mu’ayyad Shaikh (r.1412-21) in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (acc.no. 2018.472), shows the continuity of this decorative repertoire that continued throughout the fifteenth century and into the early sixteenth.