Page 210 - Art In The Age Of Exploration (Great Section on Chinese Art Ming Dynasty)

of Koran LXI, 13; ya Muhammad; and Allah, This lamp — from the mosque of Bayazid n in 105
c
Muhammad, Ali. Istanbul, which was inaugurated in 1505 — has a
This lamp and another from the mausoleum of stiff profile. Like earlier Mamluk glass mosque FOOTED BASIN
Bayazid n (^inili K6§k, Istanbul, 41/1) with simi- lamps, it is designed as a standing vessel, though
lar inscriptions and some similar motifs have been with three loops at the shoulders for suspension. c. 1510-1520
Ottoman
Turkish, Iznik,
dated to the reign of Selim i, 1512-1520 (Raby The flaring neck bears a repeating pseudo-Kufic underglaze-painted fritware
and Atasoy 1989, 94). An earlier date is however inscription between cable bands. The ground is height 23.5 f9 /4J; rim diameter 42.3 (i6 /s)
5
2
likely; in fact the lamps were most probably made sprinkled with florets, and the ascenders and some references: London 1983, no. 106; Raby and Atasoy
for Bayazid's mosque, which was inaugurated in of the other letters terminate in split palmettes. 1989, no. 299
c
1506. An entry dated 10 §a ban 910 (17 January Above these letter forms are traces of a second
1505) in the palace registers of miscellaneous dis- Kufic inscription, reduced to a horizontal line The Trustees of the British Museum, London
bursements (Meric. 1957, no. 30) records a reward broken at intervals by pairs of ascenders. The
of 2000 akge to a certain Mehmed Izniki, ki kandil shoulders have painted flutes, and below these The exterior of this basin, painted in tones of
averd "who brought lamps/' Izniki must refer not is a broad band of feathery lotus scroll, perhaps cobalt, has a band of rounded script at its rim. The
merely to Mehmed's place of origin but to his derived from a Chinese blue and white porcelain inscription, though carefully executed, appears to
trade, a maker of Iznik blue and white pottery of the Yuan Dynasty (1260-1368), with fat tad- be wholly decorative. Foliate motifs of exquisite
(gini-i Iznik). polelike buds. The foot, which allows no light detail embellish the interior. Their composition is
The extraordinarily varied profiles of the four- through, is painted with an eleven-petaled crowded into too small a space, however, for an
teen or so lamps associated with Bayazid n and star-rosette. obtrusive hexagon surrounding the center which
the rich, somewhat incongruous use of decorative Two other lamps from a group associated with suggests that stencils used to reproduce the panels
motifs shows that they must have been a trial the mausoleum of Bayazid n ((^inili K6§k, Istan- fell short, so that the inner space had to be fin-
order. The subsequent lack of Iznik mosque lamps bul, 41/4 and 41/3), with different profiles but ished by hand. At the center are half-palmettes,
until the mid-sixteenth century may indicate identical inscriptions and other motifs, must be by very possibly derived from contemporary silver-
that the experiment was not judged particularly the same hand (compare Raby and Atasoy 1989, work. In addition, they are distinctly, probably
successful. J.M.R. nos. 105/107). J.M.R. deliberately, reminiscent of swimming fish on
fourteenth and fifteenth-century Mamluk inlaid
metal work. J.M.R.
1O4
MOSQUE LAMP

c. 1505
Turkish, Iznik, Ottoman
underglaze-painted fritware
l
5
height 21.8 (8/2)-, rim diameter 16.7 (6 /s)
references: Unal 1969, 74-111; London 1976, no.
4.08; London 1983, no. 108; Yuksel 1983; Raby and
Atasoy 1989, 98-100
The Trustees of the British Museum, London

EUROPE AND THE MEDITERRANEAN WORLD 209