Page 173 - Art In The Age Of Exploration (Great Section on Chinese Art Ming Dynasty)

enameled and gilded compartments is reversed,
creating a rich decorative effect.
The headstall closely resembles an example
depicted on an early sixteenth-century Venetian
School painting, A Warrior Adoring the Infant
Christ and the Virgin (National Gallery, London),
attributed to Vincenzo Catena (d. 1531), and so
was long regarded as Venetian-Saracenic in
origin. W. L. Hildburgh pointed out, however,
that it is clearly from the same source as a group
of objects, principally sword-hilts and scabbard-
mounts, that are decorated with similar enamels
and, in some cases, similar granulated work.
These are associated with the Nasrid Kingdom of
Granada and apparently date from the second half
of the fifteenth century. Outstanding among
these objects are the hilt and scabbard-mounts of a
sword and the scabbard-mounts of a dagger —now
respectively in the Museo del Ejercito and the
Real Armeria, Madrid. They are traditionally said
to have been taken from the last Nasrid king of
Granada, Abu 'Abd Allah Muhammad (Boabdil),
after the Battle of Lucena in 1483, by an ancestor
of the de Vieana family, Marqueses de Villasca, in
whose possession they remained until recently.
Enamels of the same type are also found on a late
fifteenth-century helmet in the Metropolitan
Museum of Art, New York, which has also been
ascribed to Boabdil, though nothing certain is
55 known of its history before the nineteenth
century.
Although a special seder plate (Ke'arah) is men- The style and decorative techniques represented
tioned as early as mishnaic times (around A.D. HEADSTALL on these objects belong to a tradition in Muslim
200), no early examples have survived. Most seder late i$th-early i6th century Spain that goes back to a period long before the
plates known to us date from the eighteenth cen- Granada time of Boabdil, but, as Hildburgh pointed out
tury onwards and are made of every conceivable copper-gilt, ornamented with copper granulation (1941, 212), the actual designs on them are "a
material: pewter, brass, silver, faience, porcelain, and cloisonne enamel pure translation into metal-work of typical Grana-
and even wood. In medieval Ashkenazi illumi- width and height (largest assembled piece) 38.6 x dan ornamentation... we may, indeed, see still in
3
nated Passover prayer books (Haggadot), there is 2i. 4(i<;V4x8 /8) the stucco wall-coatings of the Alhambra just such
often a large round plate shown on the table, references: Fernandez y Gonzales 1872, 1875, designs, differing... only in their minor details/'
probably for ceremonial use during the seder, but 1:573-590, 5:389-400; Leguina 1898, 7-46; Dalton There can be no serious doubt that all of them
in medieval Sephardi Haggadot, we usually see a 1907, 376-378; Rosenberg 1918, 152-153; Laking were actually produced in Granada, though not
1920-1921, 2:15-18, 21-23, 261-267; Mann
1933,
special wicker basket for the pieces of unleavened 301-302; Fernandez Vega 1934-1935, 360, 364-367; necessarily exclusively for Moorish patrons, since
bread (mazzot). Avrin has assumed that the Israel Hildburgh 1941, 211-231; Forrandis Torres 1943, several fifteenth- and early sixteenth-century
Museum's plate was used in a pre-Passover ritual 142-166; Rodriguez Lorente 1964, 68—70; Seitz Christian Spanish inventories include descriptions
of the distribution of the mazzot, a popular 1965, 180-181; Py/irr and Alexander 1984, 21-22 of what must have been similar espadas moriscas
custom at the time. In fact in most depictions of (or ginetas) and daggers mounted in enameled
the distribution of mazzot and harosset (a paste T/ze Trustees of the British Museum, London precious metals (Leguina 1898,15-18; Fernandez
made from almonds, apples, and wine) to the chil- Vega 1934-1935, 365). The headstall and the
dren, the round mazzot are kept in a wicker basket This headstall (the part of the bridle or halter that Boabdil sword and dagger have every appearance
(see, for example, the Golden Haggadah [British encompasses the horse's head) is made up of of being the products of the same —presumably
Library, Add. MS 27210, fol. 15] and the Hispano- twenty-five flat sections of copper gilt through royal—workshop, to which the following pieces
Moresque Haggadah [British Library, MS Or. which the leather straps passed; the two medal- can also be attributed: three swords in, respec-
2737, fol. 89v]), making it questionable that this lions forming the junction for the bands pass tively, the Landesmuseum, Kassel, the Biblio-
was actually the function of our plate. Yet there is behind the ears. The upper surface of each section theque Nationale, Cabinet des Medailles, Paris
at least one example, the Sister to the Golden of the headstall is divided into two compartments. (cat. 56), and the store of the Topkapi Palace,
Haggadah (British Library, MS Or. 2884, fol. 17), One section is ornamented with a section of cloi- Istanbul (unpublished); a sword-scabbard mount,
in which it is not clear whether the mazzot are sonne enamel, in which translucent green and Victoria and Albert Museum (no. M5 8-1975,
kept in a basket or perhaps on a dish. More- blue form the ground for arabesque patterns in unpublished); harness (?) ornament, Musee
over, one must bear in mind that all the above- opaque red and white. The other section is deco- Dobree, Nantes; dagger-pommel (?) and a Jewish
mentioned Haggadot are from the fourteenth rated with an arabesque set out in strips of wire torah shield, Walters Art Gallery, Baltimore (nos.
century and the use of a special seder dish in on a gilded ground decorated with copper granu- 44.248 and 44.151, unpublished); a necklace, a set
Spain might have been introduced later. I.F. lation. In each section, the relative position of the of belt-mounts, and a pair of stirrups, Metropoli-

172 CIRCA 1492