Marble capital with stylised decoration, Spain (Granada), 1370-80.

Marble capital, with painted decoration in blue of tightly-curled scrolls. The style of this scrolling decoration is very close to motifs carved in stucco which appear throughout the Court of the Lions. Polychromy on these capitals is not unusual, but analyses will need to be done to determine whether what remains on this particular capital is original or not. The abstract form of the capital itself is also very similar to some of the types of capital used in the Palace and Court of the Lions. For a catalogue of the types, see the book by Purificación Marinetto Sánchez (Los capiteles del Palacio de los Leones en la Alhambra: ejemplo para el estudio del capitel hispanomusulmán y su trascendencia arquitectónica : estudio I, Granada, 1996), types 25 to 28.

However, the original Museum label for this object states that this capital came from the Palace of the Generalife, the summer palace of the Nasrid Sultans, and also built in the 14th century. Further research needs to be done to determine the style of capitals used in that Palace, which is not well published.

Given by Don Juan Madrazo

This object was given to the Museum by Don Juan Madrazo, a Spanish architect in the 19th century.

This capital is very close to some of the types of capital found in the Palace and Court of the Lions in the Alhambra. This part of the Alhambra was built during the second reign of the Nasrid Sultan Muhammad V (1362-1391), and most of the work was done in the early 1370s. However, the original Museum label for this object says that it came from the Palace of the Generalife. Further research needs to be done to find out which palace is meant by this remark.

Column capitals made in Spain after the Muslim conquest were originally quite similar in form and decoration to the Roman capitals which had been made there for centuries. They soon evolved away from their classical roots, though, and developed much more recognisably Islamic characteristics. Among these were increasingly abstract vegetal motifs, as seen in this column capital thought to have come from the Alhambra in Granada.

Made some 600 years after the Muslim conquest of Spain, this capital has a clearly Islamic style. Its basic form is the same as that of earlier capitals, but the acanthus leaves of Roman architecture have by this time become purely abstract shapes. They were originally painted with patterns in gold and blue.

341-1866