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Studies in Islamic Metal Work–VI1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 December 2009

Extract

The purpose of these ‘SIMW’, as also of some papers which have appeared under different titles in this Bulletin and elsewhere, is to clear the ground for the preparation of a Handbook of early Islamic metal work. My aim is to broaden the basis on which the writing of such a handbook (covering the period from the rise of Islam to the end of the fourteenth century) can be attempted, by submitting unpublished and significant material in the form of brief, but detailed, monographs. I hope that readers will call my attention to errors and omissions. The supporting illustrations (which, unless otherwise stated, are my own) form an essential part of such an undertaking, and I am most grateful to the Editorial Board of BSOAS for allowing a generous number of plates and line-drawings to be reproduced in each issue.

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Articles
Copyright
Copyright © School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London 1958

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References

page 225 note 2 The brasses of Badr al-dān Lu'lu'’, BSOAS, XIII, 3, 1951, 627–34;Google ScholarTwo unusual Mamlūk metal works’, BSOAS, XX, 1957, 487500.Google Scholar

page 225 note 3 ‘The earliest dated “ Mosul” candlestick’, Burlington Magazine, Dec. 1949, 334–40; Inlaid brasses from the workshop of Aḥmad al-Dhakī al-Mawṡilī’, Ars Orientalis, II, 1957, 283326.Google Scholar A special type of candlestick and some iconographic themes borrowed from the West are examined in Seasons and labors of the months in Islamic art’, Ars Orientalis, I, 1954,139.Google Scholar

page 225 note 4 Lévi-Provençal, E., Inscriptions arabes d'Espagne, Paris-Leiden, 1931, p. 185, No. 191Google Scholar; Kühnel, E., Islamische Kleinkunst, Berlin, 1925, p. 157,Google Scholar fig. 124; Gómez-Moreno, M., El arte 00E1rabe español hasta los Almohades (Ars Hispaniae, III), Madrid, 1951, p. 337,Google Scholar pl. 399a ; Migeon, G., Manuel d'art musulman, Paris, 1927, II, p. 17,Google Scholar fig. 220—see also other examples there (II, p. 19).

page 225 note 5 cf. Gómez-Moreno, op. cit., pl. 399b, and Zaki Hasan, M., Atlas of Moslem decorative arts, Cairo, 1956,Google Scholar fig. 542.

page 226 note 1 cf. A survey of Persian art (ed.Pope, A.U.), London, 1939,Google Scholar vol. VI, pl. 352A.

page 226 note 2 Persian art: an illustrated souvenir of the Exhibition of Persian Art, London, 1931,Google Scholar pl. 21, No. 32K; also G. Migeon, op. cit., II, pp. 16 ff.

page 226 note 3 E. Kühnel, op. cit., p. 150, fig. 118.

page 226 note 4 Survey, VI, pl. 1320.

page 226 note 5 Nos. 1890–328, 1879–15–7, and 1890–329.

page 226 note 6 Reproduced in Migeon, G., Exposition des arts musulmans, Paris, 1903,Google Scholar pl. 18.

page 226 note 7 Survey, VI, pl. 1360B, and Barrett, D., Islamic metal work in the British Museum, London, 1949,Google Scholar pl. 37.

page 226 note 8 Survey, VI, pl. 1359.

page 226 note 9 cf. Vesselovsky, N.I., Geratsky bronzovuy kotelok, St. Petersburg, 1910,Google Scholar pp. 20 f., figs. 6–7.

page 227 note 1 Survey, VI, pl. 1360A.

page 227 note 2 ibid., pl. 1362, also Migeon, G., L'Orient musulman, Paris, 1922, pl. 28, No. 85.Google Scholar

page 227 note 3 Survey, VI, pl. 1361.

page 227 note 4 ibid., pls. 1305A and C.

page 227 note 5 cf. Migeon, G., Exposition, 1903,Google Scholar pl. 22; idem., L'Orient musulman, pl. 25, fig. 82; Survey, VI, pl. 1357C.

page 227 note 6 For examples of this type of candlestick, see Rice, D.S., ‘The seasons and labors of the month in Islamic art’, Ars Orientalis, I, 1954,Google Scholar pls. 7–10.

page 227 note 7 RCEA, XI, No. 4367.Google Scholar

page 228 note 1 This arrangement obviated the need of fixing the hinges to the rear wall of the casket which was not, consequently, disfigured (pl. Ib).

page 228 note 2 I am indebted to Miss Dorothy G. Shepherd, Curator of Textiles and Near Eastern Art in the Cleveland Museum of Art, for the photograph here reproduced. The measurements of the pottery casket are: 1. 17.5 cm.; w. 15.7 cm.; h. 20.1 cm.

page 229 note 1 cf. Ferrandis, Josá, Marfiles árabes de occidente, II, Madrid, 1940, pl. VI, pp. 128–9, No. 9.Google Scholar

page 229 note 2 For a top view see Migeon, G., Manuel, I, p. 355,Google Scholar fig. 167.

page 230 note 1 In this figure the cheetah is shown reversed to reconstruct the basic motif.

page 230 note 2 Vesselovsky, op. cit., p. 1, pis. I, VII, VIII.

page 231 note 1 For a debased type see Pauty, E., Les bois sculptes jusqu'à l'ápoque ayyoubide, Cairo, 1931, pl. XXXVII, No. 4632.Google Scholar For Western examples cf. e.g. Kendrick, T.D., The Sutton Boo ship burial, London, 1947, p. 56Google Scholar and pl. 18. For an Islamic example on a casket see the above quoted truncated-pyramid casket in the Harari collection, Survey, VI, pl. 1305A.

page 231 note 2 cf. M. van Berchem in Sarre, Fr. and Herzfeld, E., Archāologische Reise im Euphrat- und Tigris-Gebiet, I, Berlin, 1911,CrossRefGoogle Scholar pp. 34 ff., pls. IX, X.

page 232 note 1 I do not think the figure on a Fatimid wood carving (Pauty, op. cit., pl. LIV, bottom) is at all comparable. There a single flower is held in an indisputably secular scene.

page 232 note 2 A. Yu. Yakubovsky, Belenitzky, A.M., and Diakonov, M.M., Zhivopis' drevnego Pyandzhikenta, Moscow, 1954,Google Scholar pls. IX, X, XII, XXXVI, XXXVII; also Belenitzkiy, A.M.,‘Iz arkheologicheskikh rabot v Pyandzhikente’, Sovetskaya Arkheologiya, XVIII, 1953,Google Scholar pp. 326 ff., fig. 3.

page 232 note 3 von Le Coq, A., Bilderatlas zur Kunst und Kulturgeschichte Mittel-Asiens, Berlin, 1925.Google Scholar For the costumes see figs. 8–11; for the stalk-carrying personages both male and female see ibid., figs. 11, 137–9. Also idem, Chotscho, Berlin, 1913, pl. 30. Le Coq wanted to see in the flower stalks degenerated versions of cornucopiae, an explanation which I have some difficulty in accepting.

page 234 note 1 cf. e.g. at Aleppo: Herzfeld, E., Matáriaux pour un C.I.A., Alep, Cairo, 1954,Google Scholar pl. IX; Diyarbakr: Gabriel, A., Voyages archáologiques dans la Turquie orientale, Paris, 1940, p. 165,Google Scholar fig. 135; Mayyāfāriqīn: ibid., p. 215, fig. 162; p. 216, fig. 163; Baku: (where a bull's head appeared between two affronted lions) Useynov, M.A., Pamyatniki Azerbaydjanskogo zodchestva, Moscow, 1951,Google Scholar pl. 23.

page 234 note 2 At Urfa on the inner wall of the Harran kapisi, see Mayer, L.A., Saracenic heraldry, Oxford, 1933,Google Scholar pl. I.

page 234 note 3 Thus on the lintel of Mar Shim‘ūn in Qaraqosh, see Bell, G., From Amurath to Amurath, London, 1911, p. 264,Google Scholar fig. 175; Tokarsky, N.M., Gegard, Moscow, 1948,Google Scholar pls. 23–4, in the thirteenth-century cave mausoleum of Prince Pshor.

page 234 note 4 cf. e.g. at Jazīrat Ibn ‘Umar in Preusser, C., Nordmesopotamische Baudenkmāler, Leipzig, 1911,Google Scholar pl. 34, G. Bell, op. cit., fig. 185.

page 234 note 5 cf. Rice, D.S., The Wade Gup in the Cleveland Museum of Art, Paris, 1955, p. 20,Google Scholar fig. 15, and p. 14, fig. 13b. On the possible fusion of two different iconographies in this zodiac sign see ibid., p. 19.

page 235 note 1 In its present condition, with the lid, one handle, one foot, and a knob missing its weight is 3 lb. ½ oz.

page 235 note 2 Survey, VI, pl. 1305C; RCEA, IX, No. 3584.Google Scholar In the Harari Collection, box and lid bore the nos. 368 and 368a. Diam. 21.4, h. 4.8 cm., of which 1.5 h. of overlapping lid. The outer surface of the lid was traced with badly worn designs showing affronted sphinx-like creatures surmounted by two long-tailed birds. A band of naskhi inscription enclosing the composition reads:

‘ Glory and success and government and praise and happiness and health and support and victory and consolidation and power and ease and continuance to its owner’. It may well be asked why I bother to record these seemingly uniform, and boringly conventional praises and blessings. The fact is that there are really no inscriptions bandles. The presence or omission of a formula, even its position in the laudatory chain, may have some significance. Only a study of the accumulated material will show whether these observations are valid criteria for the dating and localization of given objects. Of the semi-circular casket just described let it be remarked only that the sequence of good wishes follows a logical crescendo, a sign that it has not been in use for very long. The words thanā and ta'yīd seem to be used less frequently from the latter part of the thirteenth century onwards, and so certainly does al-qadr.

page 235 note 3 The reading given in RCEA, IX, No. 3584Google Scholar should be amended as indicated in RCEA, X, p. 269.Google Scholar This can be seen clearly from the tracing reproduced below. I owe the photograph from which it was made to the kindness of Professor Muḥammad Muṡṭafā, Director of the Museum of Islamic Art, Cairo.

page 235 note 4 cf. Wiet, G., L'exposition persane de 1931, Cairo, 1933, p. 31, No. 27Google Scholar; Survey, VI, pl. 1303A-B; RCEA, IX, No. 3500.Google Scholar

page 236 note 1 I gratefully acknowledge the facilities granted me for photographing this exhibit by Mr. Basil Gray and Mr. B. H. Pinder-Wilson, Keeper and Asst. Keeper of the Dept. of Oriental Antiquities in the British Museum.

page 236 note 2 cf. Oglu, M. Aga, ‘About a type of Islamic incense-burner’, Art Bulletin, XXVII, 1948,Google Scholar figs. 4, 13. E. Kühnel, Kleinkunst, p. 141, fig. 107, has a handle with almost identical shape but executed in open work.

page 236 note 3 More than one learned man had to eke out his earnings with some menial profession: why not metal work? Cf. Sam‘ānī, , kitāb al-ansāb, facs. ed. by Margoliouth, D.S., London, 1912,Google Scholar fo. 353 s.v. Ṣaffār.

page 237 note 1 I am aware, of course, of several metal works (the Mawṡilī ewer of 644/1246 in the Walters Art Gallery, Baltimore, is a case in instance) where portions of the main design are reserved in brass and the background inlaid with silver, but I know no other example in which niello has been used in this wholesale manner.

page 239 note 1 I am most grateful to Dr. Hamit Z. Koşay, Director of the Museum, for the facilities he placed at my disposal in 1950 to enable me to photograph and study this object. The casket carries the registration number 5578, the lid No. 2130.

page 240 note 1 cf. Ya. Smirnov, I., Vostochnoe Serebro, St. Petersburg, 1909,Google Scholar pl. XLIII.

page 240 note 2 Wilkinson, Charles K., ‘Assyrian and Persian art’, Bulletin of the Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York), 03 1955, 224.Google Scholar

page 240 note 3 The text is none too carefully written: ‘Blessing and joy and government and happiness and joy (?) and government and glory and well-being’.

page 241 note 1 A. von Le Coq, Bilderatlas, fig. 172.

page 243 note 1 Smirnov, op. cit., pl. LVII, No. 116.

page 243 note 2 cf. Bader, O.N. and Smirnov, A.P., Serebro Zakamskoe, Moscow, 1954,Google Scholar fig. 7. An earlier report is summarized in Bader, O.N., ‘A Sasanian vessel from Kungur’, Ars Islamica, XV-XVI, 1951, pp. 139–41Google Scholar, figs. 1–2.

page 243 note 3 See Strzygowski, J., Asiens bildende Kunst, Augsburg, 1930, p. 306,Google Scholar figs. 303–4. Also Soulier, G., Les influences orientales dans la peinture toscane, Paris, 1924, p. 45,Google Scholar fig. 11 (Martorana), p. 241, fig. 99 (mosaic in the Pattistero of Florence where the motif of the birds with the fountain and the birds heraldically flanking a tree is merged into one design). For some Coptic examples of the Islamic period see Pauty, E., Bois sculptás d'eglises copies (ápoque Fatimide), Cairo, 1926,Google Scholar pls. XLI-XLII, XLIV, L.

page 243 note 4 cf. Wiet, G., Soiries persanes, Cairo, 1947,Google Scholar pls. VII, XIII, XVI.

page 243 note 5 For a photograph of the whole piece see Ettinghausen, R., ‘Interaction and integration in Islamic art’, in Unity and variety in Muslim civilization (ed. von Grünebaum, G.E.), Chicago, 1955,Google Scholar pl. III.

page 246 note 1 Survey, VI, pl. 1299.

page 246 note 2 ibid., pl. 1321.

page 246 note 3 ibid., pls. 1283B; 1312A, C; 1327.

page 246 note 4 On this detail of costume see Rice, D.S., ‘Deacon or drink: some paintings of Samarra re-examined’, Arabica, V, 1958, p. 11, n. 5.Google Scholar

page 246 note 5 This figure frequently appears on Islamic metal work but rarely in such a contorted pose. The instrument called castanets here for lack of a more precise word are probably the muṡāfiq (musāfiq in the Vocabulista), cf. Farmer, H.G., Studies in oriental musical instruments, Glasgow, 1939, 28.Google Scholar

page 247 note 1 cf. ‘SIMW—III’, BSOAS, XV, 2, 1953, 230,Google Scholar also Ars Orientalis, II, 1957, 298.Google Scholar

page 247 note 2 cf. ‘SIMW—II ‘,BSOAS, XV, 1, 1953, 6979.Google Scholar

page 247 note 3 Smirnov, op. cit., pl. XVI, No. 39, also somewhat later pieces ibid., pl. LVTI, No. 91, and also Orbeli, I.A. and Trever, K.V., Sasanidsky metal, Leningrad, 1935, pls. 73–4.Google ScholarDalton, O.M., The treasure of the Oxus, 2nd ed., London, 1926, pl. XXXVIII, No. 208.Google Scholar I am indebted to Mr. R. D. Barnett, Keeper of Western Asiatic Antiquities in the British Museum, for permission to study and photograph this exhibit.

page 247 note 4 Sauvaget, J., ‘Remarques sur les monuments omeyyades, ii: argenterie “sassanides” ’, J.As, 19401941, 46.Google Scholar

page 247 note 5 Reproduced in Orbeli-Trever, op. cit., pl. 20; Survey, IV, pl. 233B, Sarre, Fr., Die Kunst des alten Persien, Berlin, 1922,Google Scholar pl. 105, etc. Sauvaget's analysis, op. cit., 33–46. See also his ‘Une reprásentation de la citadelle seljoukide de Merv’, Ars Islamica, XV-XVI, 1951, 128–32,Google Scholar where he went too far, perhaps, in trying to identify the castle on the Hermitage dish with a specific building and the scene depicted there with a specific event.

page 250 note 1 ‘SIMW—II’, pls. IX-X.

page 250 note 2 Sauvaget has already called, attention to what he called ‘la coiffure normale des Oghuz’ and for which he pointed to ceramics and mentioned some texts in Ars Islamica, XV-XVI, 1951,Google Scholar pp. 131 f. and fig. 4.

page 250 note 3 The miniatures of the Dioscurides MS dated A.D. 1224 whose leaves are dispersed in many collections, while the trunk remains in the Aya Sofia library, are full of parallels. Cf. Buchthal, H., ‘Early miniatures from Baghdad’, Journal of the Walters Art Gallery (Baltimore), V, 1942,Google Scholar 18 ff. passim. For Mesopotamian examples (all pre-Mongol) see also Rice, D.S.,‘The Aghānī miniatures and religious painting in Islam’, Burlington Magazine, 04 1953,Google Scholar figs. 14–17 and 19. Now also the additional Aghānī illustration discovered by Stern, S.M., ‘A new volume of the illustrated Aghānī manuscript’, Ars Orientalis, II, 1957,Google Scholar pl. 2, and the excellent examples on the frontispiece of the pseudo-Galen MS in Vienna, cf. Holter, K., ‘Die Galen Handschrift und die Maḳāmen des Ḥarīrī in der Wiener Nationalbibliothek’, Jahrbuch der Kunsthistorischen Sammlungen in Wien, NF, XI, 1937,Google Scholar pl. I.

page 251 note 1 Ars Orientalis, II, 1957, 322.Google Scholar

page 251 note 2 Vesselovsky, op. cit., pl. V, also Kesati, R.,‘Geratsky bronzowy kotelok 1163 g.’ Pamyatniki Epokhi Rustaveli, Leningrad, 1938, pp. 237–46,Google Scholar pl. 34.

page 251 note 3 E. Ettinghausen, op. cit., pp. 115 f., calls it ‘Ghaznavid … probably from Maḥmūd's other capital Ghazna’.

page 251 note 4 Survey, IV, pl. 166.

page 251 note 5 von Le Coq, A., Buddhistische Spátantike, III, Berlin, 1924,Google Scholar pl. 14, 15, 17.

page 251 note 6 Evtyukhova, , ‘Kamennuie izvayaniya Yuzhnoi Sibiri i Mongolii’, Materialui po Arhheologii SSSR, 24, 1952,Google Scholar 71 ff.

page 251 note 7 Herzfeld, E., Die Malereien von Samarra, Berlin, 1927,Google Scholar pls. LXV-LXVI.

page 251 note 8 Schlumberger, D., ‘Le palais ghaznávide de Lashkari Bazar’, Syria, XXIX, 1952,Google Scholar pls. XXXI-XXXII, and p. 265.

page 252 note 1 Survey, VI, pl. 1277, and ‘SIMW—II’, p. 66, fig. 5.

page 252 note 2 Martin, F.R., Ältere Kupferarbeiten aus dem Orient, Stockholm, 1902,Google Scholar pl. 31.

page 252 note 3 I am indebted to Mr. Jack Sewell, Curator of the Oriental Department of the Chicago Art Institute, for the facilities to study this exhibit.

page 253 note 1 [sic] (6) [sic] (5) (hidden by hinge) (4) (3) (2) (1) [sic] (12) [sic] (ll) [sic] (10) (9) (8) (7).

page 253 note 2 F. R. Martin, op. cit., pl. 26.