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Lot Essay
The inscriptions are not clearly written. Many words are clear, but a full reading has not been possible. They combine both benedictory invocations such as al-‘afiya wa’l-yumn (?) wa’l-kifaya (health and good fortune and sufficiency) with lists of qualities normally associated with honorific inscriptions such as al-‘amil al-‘adil al-mujahid (?) ( the diligent, the just, the holy warrior (?)). In one of the kufic bands on the body appears to be the name … al-‘abd ibn ‘ali ahmad (the servant (of God) Ibn ‘Ali Ahmad).
A few years ago a very similar vase to ours, from the Jean-Paul Croisier Collection, was sold at auction (Sotheby’s, 8 October 2008, lot 98). Ascribed to Nasrid Spain, it had been on loan to the Insitut du Monde Arabe and in the very impressive 1985 Geneva exhibition Tresors d’Islam. Both are of almost identical form, with faceted upper section, diagonally fluted rounded body, and spreading faceted foot. In both cases, and most unusually for other items of metalwork, the mouth is octagonal while the foot is hexagonal. The present vase is very considerably larger than the other, but in form that is the only major difference.
The Croisier vase was attributed to Nasrid Spain. While hardly discussed in the minimal catalogue entry, there were various attributes of that vase which strongly reinforce such an attribution. The script is very typical, and close to that of the Nasrid covered cylindrical box in the Treasury of St Mark’s Rome (Eredita dell’Islam, Arte Islamica in Italia, Venice, 1993, no.38, pp.121-122; Maroc Médiéval, un empire de l’Afrique et de l’Espagne, Paris, 2015, no.3, p.76). The arabesques also have a freedom and lack symmetry that tends to be found in metalwork from further east. The designs of both the Croisier vase and the St. Mark covered box are executed by the outlines being chased into the metal and then the background being matted and physically knocked back with the use of a ring-punch. The resulting design appears slightly rounded against the matted background, a feature more noticeable in the St. Mark covered box than the vase.
There are many respects in which the decoration on our vase differs in detail considerably from that of the Croisier example. The style of the cursive script does not have the free flow of the script of the smaller vessel. While the Croisier vase does not use kufic, that script on the St. Mark’s covered box is much more clearly an occidental variant of that script than is found here. The panels of design that decorate the foot show a similar difference, here showing a much more symmetrical design with thinner tendrils than the more naturalistic Croisier example with its fleshy arabesques. However despite these differences, by far the most prominent element of the decoration in both is the band of lobed pendants containing trefoils around the mouth, and in both cases these are nearly identically conceived, especially the highly unusual feature of being arranged across the ribs rather than being contained in the panels delineated by the ribs. It is only the execution of these that differs between the two, in the same way that that of the other elements also differs; their construction is identical. These are clearly Spanish in origin, very close for example to the upper central element on a Taifa period carved marble panel in the Museo de Santa Crus, Toledo (The Art of Medieval Spain, A.D. 500-1200, exhibition catalogue, New York, 1994, no.35, p.90). As that catalogue makes clear, the design derives from Fatimid design (see p.78 in the same catalogue), but the Spanish version, as in our vessels, has the very strong upper elements that do not cross but curve sharply away from each other.
When he first published the Croisier example, James Allan pointed out that the form of the vase, which he termed a jug, derived from examples of early Islamic silver such as two Khorasan jugs in the Hermitage (James W. Allan, ‘Metalwork’, in Toby Falk (ed.), Treasures of Islam, Geneva, 1985, no.295, p.284). He actively suggests that it is “part of a precious metal tradition inherited from the caliphate in the first couple of centuries of Islam”. The present vase appears to corroborate this, although possibly indicating that the form moved west later than Allan suggested. In detail the inscription and lower panels are much closer to their eastern prototype, and some of the elements may well have been copied from there. It is thus much more likely to pre-date the more purely Nasrid decoration on the Croisier example, probably dating from the Almohad period. This would also be consistent with the scripts that we have observed, although the use of honorific as well as benedictory phrases could indicate a slightly later date, into the Nasrid period. Whichever of the two is the case, it is an enormously rare survival of secular metalwork from an early and important period of the western Islamic world.
A few years ago a very similar vase to ours, from the Jean-Paul Croisier Collection, was sold at auction (Sotheby’s, 8 October 2008, lot 98). Ascribed to Nasrid Spain, it had been on loan to the Insitut du Monde Arabe and in the very impressive 1985 Geneva exhibition Tresors d’Islam. Both are of almost identical form, with faceted upper section, diagonally fluted rounded body, and spreading faceted foot. In both cases, and most unusually for other items of metalwork, the mouth is octagonal while the foot is hexagonal. The present vase is very considerably larger than the other, but in form that is the only major difference.
The Croisier vase was attributed to Nasrid Spain. While hardly discussed in the minimal catalogue entry, there were various attributes of that vase which strongly reinforce such an attribution. The script is very typical, and close to that of the Nasrid covered cylindrical box in the Treasury of St Mark’s Rome (Eredita dell’Islam, Arte Islamica in Italia, Venice, 1993, no.38, pp.121-122; Maroc Médiéval, un empire de l’Afrique et de l’Espagne, Paris, 2015, no.3, p.76). The arabesques also have a freedom and lack symmetry that tends to be found in metalwork from further east. The designs of both the Croisier vase and the St. Mark covered box are executed by the outlines being chased into the metal and then the background being matted and physically knocked back with the use of a ring-punch. The resulting design appears slightly rounded against the matted background, a feature more noticeable in the St. Mark covered box than the vase.
There are many respects in which the decoration on our vase differs in detail considerably from that of the Croisier example. The style of the cursive script does not have the free flow of the script of the smaller vessel. While the Croisier vase does not use kufic, that script on the St. Mark’s covered box is much more clearly an occidental variant of that script than is found here. The panels of design that decorate the foot show a similar difference, here showing a much more symmetrical design with thinner tendrils than the more naturalistic Croisier example with its fleshy arabesques. However despite these differences, by far the most prominent element of the decoration in both is the band of lobed pendants containing trefoils around the mouth, and in both cases these are nearly identically conceived, especially the highly unusual feature of being arranged across the ribs rather than being contained in the panels delineated by the ribs. It is only the execution of these that differs between the two, in the same way that that of the other elements also differs; their construction is identical. These are clearly Spanish in origin, very close for example to the upper central element on a Taifa period carved marble panel in the Museo de Santa Crus, Toledo (The Art of Medieval Spain, A.D. 500-1200, exhibition catalogue, New York, 1994, no.35, p.90). As that catalogue makes clear, the design derives from Fatimid design (see p.78 in the same catalogue), but the Spanish version, as in our vessels, has the very strong upper elements that do not cross but curve sharply away from each other.
When he first published the Croisier example, James Allan pointed out that the form of the vase, which he termed a jug, derived from examples of early Islamic silver such as two Khorasan jugs in the Hermitage (James W. Allan, ‘Metalwork’, in Toby Falk (ed.), Treasures of Islam, Geneva, 1985, no.295, p.284). He actively suggests that it is “part of a precious metal tradition inherited from the caliphate in the first couple of centuries of Islam”. The present vase appears to corroborate this, although possibly indicating that the form moved west later than Allan suggested. In detail the inscription and lower panels are much closer to their eastern prototype, and some of the elements may well have been copied from there. It is thus much more likely to pre-date the more purely Nasrid decoration on the Croisier example, probably dating from the Almohad period. This would also be consistent with the scripts that we have observed, although the use of honorific as well as benedictory phrases could indicate a slightly later date, into the Nasrid period. Whichever of the two is the case, it is an enormously rare survival of secular metalwork from an early and important period of the western Islamic world.