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The Brasses of Badr al-Dīn Lu'lu’*
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 December 2009
Extract
Only one Islamic metal vessel can be said with certainty to have been made at Mosul. This is the so-called Blacas Ewer in the British Museum which bears an Arabic inscription stating that it was engraved by ujā’ b. Man'a al-Mawṣilī at Mosul in the month of Rajab 629 (= May 1232).
- Type
- Research Article
- Information
- Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies , Volume 13 , Issue 3 , October 1950 , pp. 627 - 634
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- Copyright © School of Oriental and African Studies 1950
References
page 627 note 1 For the latest bibliography see Répertoire a’ Épigraphie Arabe, vol. xi, pp. 29–30, No. 4046. Add the excellent reproductions in Survey of Persian Art, Oxford, 1939, vol. vi, pl. 1329–1330.
page 627 note 2 Cf. M. Sobernheim, art. Lu’lu’ in Enc. of Islam; Van Berchem, M.: “Monuments et inscriptions de l'atābek Lu’lu’ de Mossoul” in Orientalische Stvdien (Festschrift Th. Noeldeke), Giessen, 1906, vol. i, pp. 200–210Google Scholar; Al-Člebī, Dā’ūd: “al-Malik Badr al-dīn Lu’lu’ wal-aär al-qadīma al-islamiya fi-1-Mawsil” in Sumer ī, Baghdad, 1946, pp. 20–8Google Scholar; Cahen, Claude: “La djazira au milieu du treizième sièecle d'apres ‘Izz al-din Ibn Chaddād” in REI., 1934, pp. 109—128.Google Scholar
page 627 note 3 Best reproduction in Sarre, F. and Martin, F. B., Die Ausstellung von Meisterwerken Muhammedanischer Kunst in Mttnchen 1910, Munich, 1912, vol. ii, pl. 145.Google Scholar
page 628 note 1 “Das Metallbeken des Atabeks Lu'lu’ von Mossul” in Münchner Jahrb. d. bild. Kunst., 1907, i, pp. 18–37. For the inscriptions and bibliography cf. also Répertoire d'Épigraphie Arabe, vol. xii, Cairo, 1943, pp. 39–40, No. 4457.
page 628 note 2 Kratchkovskaya, V. A., “Nadpis bronzovovo taza Badr al-dīna Lūlū” in Epigrafika Vostoka i, Moscow, 1947, pp. 9–22Google Scholar; cf. also Répertoire, vol. xii, pp. 42–3, No. 4458, and an additional note by Kratchkovski, I. Y., “Ob odnom epitete v nadpisi bronzovovo taza Lūlū,” in Epigrafika Vostoka ii, Moscow, 1948, pp. 1–8.Google Scholar
page 628 note 3 Viazmitina, S. M., Katalog Muzei Mistetsva Vseukrainskoi Akademii Nauk, Kiew, 1930, p. 115, No. 398, pl. xiii.Google Scholar
page 628 note 4 L. T. Guzelian, “Nadpis s imenem Badr al-dīna Lūlū na bronzovom podsvetchnike Gosudarstvennovo Ermitazha,” in Epigrafika Vostoka ii, pp. 76–82.
page 628 note 5 The Art of the Saracens in Egypt, London, 1886, pp. 172–3. This article was in the press when Barrett's, D.Islamic Metalwork in the British Museum, London, 1949, appeared; cf. pl. 18.Google Scholar
page 629 note 1 Cf. I. Goldziher, “Der Gebrauoh der Kunya ala Ehrenbezeiohnung”, Muhammedanische Studien, i, p. 267.
page 629 note 2 Sarre, F. and Herzfeld, E., Archäologische Reise im Euphrat und Tigris-Gebiet, Berlin, 1911, vol. i, pp. 22–3CrossRefGoogle Scholar; vol. iii, pl. ix. On the use of the fictitious Ibn ‘Abdallāh for slaves of obscure origin cf. van Berchem, M.CIA., Egypt i, Paris, 1903, p. 84.Google Scholar
page 629 note 3 Cf. The granting of a kunya to Muḥammad b. Ṭugj by the caliph Muttaqī in Ibn Sa'īd, Al-Mu rib fī ḥulā al-ma rib, ed. K. L. Tallqvist, Leiden, 1899, p. ; also the writer's forth-coming article on “Some miniatures with the name of Badr al-dīn Lu'lu’.”
page 629 note 4 Sarre and van Berchem, op. cit., p. 22, cf. Smirnov, J. I., Vostochnoe serebro, St. Petersburg, 1909, Atlas, pls. lxxix-lxxx, No. 142.Google Scholar A silver bowl in the Ermitage showing three hares placed centrifugally with their ears meeting at the centre.
page 630 note 1 Christie, A. H., Traditional Methods of Pattern Designing, Cambridge, 1910, pp. 68–9.Google Scholar
page 631 note 1 Cf. Migeon, , Manuel d'Art Musulman, 2nd ed., vol. ii, Paris, 1927, p. 48Google Scholar, fig. 237 and p. 50. Migeon's mistake found its way into subsequent publications. Répertoire, vol. xii, p. 38, No. 4455. Only Kūhnel, E. remarked that there was an obvious discrepancy between the description and the reproduction; cf. “Zwei Mosulbronzen und ihr Meister” in Jahrbuch d. preuss. Kunstsamml., vol. lx, 1939, p. 11Google Scholar, note 5.
page 631 note 2 Examples of Christian scenes are not altogether lacking on Islamic metalwork, cf. the examples given by Oglu, M. Aga, “About a type of Islamic incense burner,” in The. Art Bulletin, xxvii, 1945, pp. 34–5Google Scholar; Villard, U. Monneret de, Le chiese della mesopotamia (= Orientalia Christiana Analecta, No. 128), Rome, 1940, pp. 89 ff.Google Scholar
page 631 note 3 Vide M. Chemoul, art. “al-Nābiga al-ubyānī” in Enc. of Islam.
page 631 note 4 Derenbourg, H., Le diwām de Nābigha al-Dhobyānī, Paris, 1869, p. 83Google Scholar and p. 126. With the variant instead of in Ibn Qutaiba, K. al-i'r wal-u'arā', ed. de Goeje, Leiden, 1904, p. 75. Also A ānī, 2nd ed., Cairo, 1938, vol. xi, p. 39.
page 632 note 1 Cf. e.g. The penbox in the Marquet de Vasselot collection made by Yūsuf b. Ya'qūb, in Survey of Persian Art, vol. vi, pl. 1317, c. and d. Also Herzfeld, E., “A bronze pencase (made in 607/1210)” in Ars Islamica, vol. iii, 1936, p. 35Google Scholar, esp. the animal friezes in fig. 1 and the inscription in fig. 8.
page 632 note 2 The inscription forms a continuous band and is not divided into four compartments as stated by M. van Berchem, Monuments et inscriptions de l'atābek…, pp. 206–207.
page 633 note 1 Cf. Kühnel, op. cit., p. 13, fig. 9.
page 633 note 2 I hope to give elsewhere a detailed account of this important vessel.
page 633 note 3 Op. cit., pp. 209 ff.
page 633 note 4 For similar mistakes on the candlestick in the Ermitage collection cf. Guzelian, op. cit., pp. 79–81.
page 634 note 1 For similar store-marks cf. Rice, D. S., “The Oldest Dated ‘ Mosul’ Candlestick” in Burlington Magazine, 1949, p. 339.Google Scholar
page 634 note 2 Op. cit., p. 19. A drawing of the graffiti and the main inscription is reproduced in Lanci, M. A., Trattato delle simboliche rappresentanze arabiche, Paris, 1845–6Google Scholar, vol. iii, pl. xlviii.
page 634 note 3 Cf. Kühnel, op. cit., p. 10.
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