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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 December 2009
The Galleria Estense in Mondena possesses an Islamic metal bowl which enriches our knowledge of Islamic metal work in more than one respect. This is a rounded, pot-shaped vessel (plate I), 11 cm. high and 27 cm. wide at its greatest diameter. The projecting part of the body is decorated with eight polylobed medallions intersected by oblong compartments enclosing a nakhī inscription and set against a densely filled background of flowering scrolls. The ‘neck’ of the bowl shows a narrow frieze of 24 running animals, which are placed in eight elongated panels containing three animals each. Whereas generally this frieze closely follows the traditional way of showing quadrupeds in pursuit (plate II (a, b)), there is a remarkable deviation from this arrangement in one of these compartments. It contains a camel, a lion, and a bull; these last two are shown in confrontation and seem to leap at each other as if in mutual attack (plate II (c)).
1 Inv. no. 8082. I am greatly indebted to the Trustees of the L. A. Mayer Memorial Association who in 1966 enabled me to visit punlic collections in Italy. I also wish to thank the Director and Museum staff of the Galleria Estense for giving me the facilities to study and photograph this object and for their kind permission to publish it.
2 The diameter of the base measures 16.5 cm. It equals that of the rim.
3 For the combatant lion and bull motif in islamic iconography see Hartner, W. and Ettinghausen, R., ‘The conquering lion: the life cucle of a symbol’, Oriens, XVII, 1964, 161–71CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also Baer, E. ‘A group of seljuq stone slabs’, Oriens, 20, 1968Google Scholar. The traditional enmity between lion and bull is also referred to in the shāh-nāmeh. When kāy khusraw, in pursuit of Afrasiyāb, crossed the sea Zere, among the creatures his army met Firdawsī mentions lions and bulls, ‘and the bulls are in combat with the lions’. See Fidawsī, , shāh-nĀmeh, tr. Mohl, j., Paris, 1877, IV, 139.Google Scholar
4 One of these pairs shows a slightly different theme. For this see below.
5 For a drawing of this medallion see Rice, D. S., ‘The seasons and the lanors of the months in Islamic art’, Ars Orientalis, 1, 1954, fig. 16.Google Scholar
6 I should like to thank Mr. M. Sharon for his help in deciphering the inscription. A silliar text, but in a different order, occurs on another fourteenth-century pot-shaped Persian bowl in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, no.91.I.581.
7 Mentioned by Rice, D. S., ‘Two unusual Mamluk metal works’, BSOAS, XX, 1957, 488, n. 2Google Scholar; idem, Ars Orientalis, I, 1954, 29. See also Mayer, L. A., Islamic metal workers and their works and their works, Genève, 1959, 22Google Scholar, where, however, the author refers only to Rice‘s footnote. Professor Mayer apparently had not seen the bowland and therefore was aware of only a part of the inscription.
8 Guest, Grace D. and Ettinghausen, R., ‘The iconography of a Kashān lustre plate’, Ars Orientalis, vi, 1961, 45–52Google Scholar, plate 15; Ettinghausen, R., ‘The “Wade Cup” in the Cleveland Museum of Art, its origin and decorations ’, Ars Orientalis, II, 1957Google Scholar, plate 13, fig. 39.
9 Lyon, Musee des Arts Decoratifs, no. 812. Dating probably not before middle or beginning of second half of fourteenth century.
10 Reg. no. E-538. The bowl is made of beaten brass and has sparse inlay of silver and gold.
11 Reg. no. 361, Carrand Collection, courtesy Museo Nazionale, Palazzo del Bargello, Photo graph D. S. Rice. For this type see also bowl in the freer Gallery fo Art, no. 49. 11, Ettinghusen, , Ars Orientalis, II, 1957, plate 13. see also bowl in the Metropolitan Museum of art, cited above, p. 16, n. 6.Google Scholar
12 Rice, D. S., BSOAS, xx, 1957Google Scholar, plates I-VI, fig. 2. See also bowl in Modena, ibid., plates VII-X.
13 After Rice, D. S., Le Baptistère de Saint Louis, Paris, 1951Google Scholar, fig. 22.
14 Naples, Museo Nazionale, no. H. 3253. Height 12cm., diameter of opening 19.4cm. The vessel is thus slightly larger than the Modena bowl. Photograoph courtesy Soprintendenza Gallerie Napoli.
15 Baer, E., Sphinxes and harpies in medieval Islamic art, Jerusalem, 1965, 29–49.Google Scholar
16 ibid., 33.
17 Wustenfeld, F. (ed.), Zakarija Ben Muhammed Ben Mahmud el-Carwini‘s Kosmographie, Göttingen, 1849, I, 419–20Google Scholar; Mūsā, Muhammad b. al-Damīrī, Hayāt al-hayawān al-kubrā, CairoBūlāq, 1868, II, 192Google Scholar; tr. Jayakar, A. S. J., London-Bombay, 1906–8, II, pt. I, p. 401Google Scholar; cf. Baer, E., op. cit., 41.Google Scholar
18 Menāqibi Ghazawāati Sultān Sari Saltiq Ghāzī, Kasan, 1890, 14Google Scholar; cf. Brockelmann, C., ‘Das altosmanische Volksbuch, Menāqibi Gazawāti Sari Saltiq Gāzī’, Miscellanea Academica Berolinensia (Berlin), II, 2, 1950, 189Google Scholar. I should like to thank Dr. Voight, Secretary of the DMG, for sending me a photo-copy of the relevant page. The character of this bird in Turkish epic literature still remains to be investigated. Some interesting references are found in Melikoff, I., Abū Muslim, le‘ Porte-Hache’ du Khorassan dans la tradition epique turco-iranienne, Paris, 1962,39–8, 65, 72.Google Scholar
19 One well-known example is a miniature in the so-called Schefer-Harīrī, painted in Baghdād and dated 634/1237. It depicts a human-headed bird on an eastern iosland which is surrounded by fisher swimming in the water. Cf. Paris, Bibl, Nat., MS arabe 5847, 121r, freqently reproduced. For colour reproduction see for instance R.Ettinghausen, Arab Painting, Skira, 1962, 122.
20 D. S. Rice, Baptiste‘re, 26, refers in his description to two harpies onlu. For flying harpies see also minai jar in the Parish Walson collection,Meyer-Riefstahl, R.M., The parish Watson Collection of mohammedan pottaries, New York, 1922, no. 15, fig. 36 (text, p. 101).Google Scholar
21 Lane, E.W.(tr.): The thousand and one nights, commonly called, in England, the Arabian nights’ entertainments, London, 1849, III, 632–3Google Scholar.This tale has also been referred to by Ettindhausen in connexion with representations of nude human beings in the water, see Guest, Grace D.andEttinghausen, R.,Ars Orientalis, IV, 1961, 48.Google Scholar
22 Lane, op.cit., III,36.
23 ibid., III, 11.
24 Qazwīn‛, ed. Wüstenfeld, I, 130. Tr.H. Ethe, Halbband I,Die Wunder der Schōpfung, Leipzig, 1868,226.
25 Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, cod. arab. 464, fol.72r, to be dated before 682/1283.
26 Washington, Free Gallery of Art, MS 54.33–114, p. 137, probably painted Irap 1370–80.
27 Munich, cod. arab.464, fol. 74r; Freer Gallert of Art, MS 54.33–114, p.141. In Qazwīnī, s text there is no mention of the lion-head of the dolphin; the author only states that it is of good omen and rescues drowning people on its beck, Qqzwīnī, ed. Wüstenfeld, 137; tr. Ethe,274.
28 Qazwīnī, ed. Wüstenfeld, 133; tr. Ethé, 273. It is an interbreeding between a snake and a fish.
29 Qazwīnī, ed. Wüstenfeld,120; tr. Eth´e,245. Not illustrated in Munich MS. Damīrī, tr. Jayakar, I, 329, cites Qazwīnī and designates it as baqar al-mā’. The baqar al-mā’, mentioned by Qazwīnī in connexion with the Caspian sea, is illustrated in the Munich manyscript as a large winged bull, cod.arab.464, fol.72v.
30 Drawing of centre of plate IX, see p. 19, n.11.
31 Fish whorl from Mamluk basin, Lyon, Musée des Arts Décoratifs, no.879.
32 Ettingausen, , Ars Orientalis, II, 1957, 347–7Google Scholar and fig. N, with further references.
33 idid., 341–52.
34 Fragment of underglaze-painted bowl. Courtesy Athens, Benaki Museum, no.496 (unpudlisher). See alsoMusée, de I’ Art Ara be de Caire,La c´eramique ´gyptienne de l’époque musulmane, Basle, 1922, plate 119.Google Scholar
35 ‘Lajvardina’ dish, Jersalem, Israel Museum, Bazalel Collection, no.1779–56. Courtesy the Israel Museum, Jerusalem.
36 Mamluk basin, early fourteenth century, Harari Collection, no.166. Photograph from the archives of the L.A. Mayer Memorial Association, Jerusalem.
37 see p.18, n.8.
38 A whorl surrounded by redially placed fishes is found also on a Muzaffarid bowl in Lyon, Mesée dess Arts Décoratifs. Unpublished.
39 Drawing of central design from Syrian or Egyptian bowl, Florence, Bergello, no. 364C. See also the ‘ Lady Fātima ’ bowl in the Benaki Museum; Rice, D.S., ‘Studies in Islamic metal work [-I]’, BSOAS, XIV, 3, 1952, 564–73.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
40 Damīrī, tr. Jayakar, II, pt. I, P. 552.
41 ibid., p. 78.
42 For inscriptions of drinking vessels refering to the influence of water on the human body see Reinaud, J. T., Monuments arabes, persans et turcs de cabined de m. le Duc de Blacas et ďautres cabinets, Paris, 1828, II, 443–6.Google Scholar
43 Ethé, H., ‘Alexanders Zug zum Lebensquell im Land der Finsterniss’, sitzuunsberichte derphilosophisch-philologischen and historischen classe der Bayerische A kademic der Wissenschaften, 1871, 384Google Scholar, verses 58–61, comments pp. 388–92.
44 E.Baer, op.cit., 36–7, 80.
