Page 12 - 2021 April 1, ART OF THE ISLAMIC AND Indian Worlds Including Oriental Rugs, Christie's London

In his 1985 publication James Allan links the present bowl to two other
examples, one in the Louvre that he illustrates in the article as fig.4, and an
undecorated bowl in the Keir Collection (See James Allan in Julian Raby
(ed.), The Art of Syria and the Jazira 1100-1250, Oxford Studies in Islamic Art,
Oxford, 1985, pp.130-35 and Geza Fehérvári, Islamic Metalwork of the 8th
to the 15th Century in the Keir Collection, London, 1976, no.65, pl.19c, no.65,
pl.19c). The Louvre bowl is of very similar form with a strong inscription
around the rim and a central radiating sun motif very similar to the design of
which there are traces in the centre of this bowl. The Louvre and Keir bowls
have feet, which are missing here. Fehérvári’s note on the Keir example cites
a further example of related but more straight-sided form, in the Museo
Civico in Bologna, made for Najm al-Din al-Badri who served at the court
of Badr al-Din Lu'lu' in Aleppo 1210-1259 (Francesco Gabrieli and Umberto
Scerrato, Gli Arabi in Italia, Milan, 1979, p.508, pls.560-561). All are made of
what appears to be a ‘white’ or ‘high-tin’ bronze.
Our bowl, when first published, was catalogued as 12th century; the find site
in Hamadan served as an indicator of origin. Subsequent authors have not
always agreed. Pope did not clarify at all in the Survey, while James Allan, in
the Spink catalogue suggested North-West Iran, an opinion he revised to
13th century Jazira when republishing it in 1985. In 2002 it was attributed to
12th-13th century Northern Syria. When re-attributing the bowl, James Allan
did not refer to the Bologna bowl with its almost conical outline strongly
5 reminiscent of Raqqa pottery, but to a group of earlier Fatimid bowls of
similarly strongly flaring outline, and in this context it is interesting to note
A SILVER-INLAID WHITE BRONZE FLARING BOWL
JAZIRA, POSSIBLY MOSUL, 13TH CENTURY that the plain Keir bowl was purchased in Cairo.
The wide flaring rim inlaid with a continuous scene of knights mounted on The inlaid decoration is really splendid in its variety and inventiveness. There
horses, camels and elephants, all armed with swords, spears or composite are nine horsemen wielding a variety of lances, swords, shields, bows and
bows, a band of hanging palmettes beneath them, base repaired arrows, while one has a falcon on his wrist. These are divided on one side by
8Ωin. (21.6cm.) diam.
two figures on an elephant the one in front with an ankus; the one behind
£100,000-120,000 US$150,000-170,000 with a falcon. The other side has a very unusual figure of a drummer seated
€120,000-140,000 on a camel, the large kettle drums hanging on the camel’s flanks. He is the
one figure depicted completely in profile, maintaining his steady beat while
PROVENANCE:
the others cavort around him. The size of the individual pieces of inlaid
Excavated near Hamadan, Iran, before 1925
silver is relatively large, and gaps in the design are filled with a variety of
Alphonse Kahn, Paris, by 1931
animals. Occasionally a vine scroll terminates in a rabbit’s head in a way that
With Spink by 1975
With the present owner since 2002 is seen on various other inlaid brass vessels from both the Jazira and from
Khorassan. The liveliness of the depiction is strongly reminiscent of the band
LITERATURE:
of mounted horsemen that run around the centre of the flat side of one of the
Catalogue de l’Exposition d’Art Oriental: Chine – Japon – Perse, Paris, 1925
masterpieces of Jaziran metalwork, the Freer Canteen, attributed to mid-13th
Exhibition of Persian Art, London, Royal Academy of Arts, 7 January to 7 March
century Mosul (Julian Raby, “The Principle of Parsimony and the Problem
1931, item 229R, p.147
of the Mosul School of Metalwork”, in Venetia Porter and Mariam Rosser-
Arthur Upham Pope, A Survey of Persian Art From Prehistoric Times to the
Present, vol. XIII, SoPA Ashiya, 1938, item 1313A Owen, Metalwork and Material Culture in the Islamic World, London, 2012,
Chevaux et cavaliers arabes dans les arts d'Orient et d'Occident, 26 November pp.49-52, fig.1.25; also Esin Atil, W.T. Chase and Paul Jett, Islamic Metalwork
2002 to 30 March 2003, no.156, pp.186-187 in the Freer Gallery of Art, Washington DC, 1985, no.17, pp.124-136).

10