Page 204 - Art In The Age Of Exploration (Great Section on Chinese Art Ming Dynasty)

below, in rows, the works of corporeal mercy
alternating with figures of Dominicans, Francis-
cans, and members of the Order of Calatrava.
These Spanish manuscripts with their Sephar-
dic connections harmonize strikingly with the
elements from the Testamentum Salomonis and
from the Jewish Midrash incorporated into the
Suleymanname frontispieces; and the transmis-
sion could well be the result of the diaspora of
manuscripts brought by Jewish scholars to Salo-
nike and Istanbul from Granada after its fall to
Ferdinand and Isabella in 1492. j. M. R.

95
BASIN

late i$th century
Egyptian, Mamluk
brass, inlaid with gold, silver, and black composition
2
3
rim diameter 36.2 fi4 /4J; height 16 (6 /s)
c
inscribed: lzz li-mawlana al-Sultan: al-Malik
c
al-Ashraf Abu'1-Nasr Qa'it Bay azza nasruh
references: Munich 1910, no. 3554 andpl 158;
Kuhnel 1950; Ettinghausen 1967; Melikian-
Chirvani 1969
Turk ve Islam Eserleri Muzesi, Istanbul

The outer sides of this celebrated basin are deco-
rated with four bold, repeated, and blazoned
tumar inscriptions —"Glory to His Majesty, al-
Malik al-Ashraf the victorious Qa'it Bay, may his
victory be glorious" — on a spiral scroll ground
broken into two and repeated, broken by circular
three-field inscription blazons with the same
inscription. Between the inscriptions are complex
knots on a dense arabesque ground with elongated
split palmettes. At the rim is a band of chinoiserie
lotus scroll typical of manuscript illumination
during the reign of Qa'it Bay, Mamluk Sultan of
Egypt (r. 1472-1496). Above the base are beaten
arcs, filled with minute meanders and y-shaped
motifs and broken by small circles. The base is
shaped as a roundel with a design of star-poly-
gons, and other star patterns. It is one of the
finest known examples of the so-called Mamluk
Kassettenstil (angular interlacing ornament),
which is otherwise more typical of stone and
paneled woodwork of the period. The polygons
are filled with arabesques, stylized chinoiserie
lotus blossoms, and knot patterns. The basin's
interior has the remains of lavish arabesques in
silver.
Certain features of the decoration point to a
deliberate revival of the fine inlaid Mosuli and
Mamluk metalwork of the late thirteenth and
early fourteenth centuries, particularly the chas-
ing of the silver inlay, which stands proud of the
surface, and the use of two highly unusual motifs
for later fifteenth-century Egypt: pairs of back-

EUROPE AND THE MEDITERRANEAN WORLD 203