Bottom half of the plaster cast of a window grille with arabesque pattern from the madrasa at Qal'at al-Kabsh, Cairo, built by Sultan Qa’itbay in 1475-6.

Plaster cast made from locally available Egyptian building plaster, which has a pinkish tone. The surface has been patinated with a grey pigment and where this is thin, the pink colour of the material is showing through.

Bought from the collection of Gaston de Saint-Maurice (1831-1905) in 1884. Saint-Maurice displayed his extensive art collection at the 1878 Paris exhibition, in a gallery entitled L'Egypte des Khalifes. This was part of an official sequence of displays celebrating the history of Egypt, presented by the Egyptian state at this international event. Saint-Maurice held a position at the Khedival court, and had lived in Cairo in 1868-1878. Following the exhibition, Saint-Maurice offered his collection for sale to the South Kensington Museum (today the V&A).

This object was copied in the Museum and given the number Repro.1884-825. This reproduction was recorded as being on loan to the Royal Scottish Museum according to nominal file (12/12/21), and written off in 1938 (Board of Survey R.P. 38/2907).

Making plaster copies is a centuries-old tradition that reached the height of its popularity during the 19th century. The V&A's casts are of large-scale architectural and sculptural works as well as small scale, jewelled book covers and ivory plaques, these last known as fictile ivories.

The Museum commissioned casts directly from makers and acquired others in exchange. Oronzio Lelli, of Florence was a key overseas supplier while, in London, Giovanni Franchi and Domenico Brucciani upheld a strong Italian tradition as highly-skilled mould-makers, or formatori.

Some casts are highly accurate depictions of original works, whilst others are more selective, replicating the outer surface of the original work, rather than its whole structure. Like a photograph, they record the moment the cast was taken: alterations, repairs and the wear and tear of age are all reproduced in the copies. The plasters can also be re-worked, so that their appearance differs slightly from the original from which they were taken.

To make a plaster cast, a negative mould has to be taken of the original object. The initial mould could be made from one of several ways. A flexible mould could be made by mixing wax with gutta-percha, a rubbery latex product taken from tropical trees. These two substances formed a mould that had a slightly elastic quality, so that it could easily be removed from the original object. Moulds were also made from gelatine, plaster or clay, and could then be used to create a plaster mould to use for casting.
When mixed with water, plaster can be poured into a prepared mould, allowed to set, and can be removed to produce a finished solid form. The moulds are coated with a separating or paring agent to prevent the newly poured plaster sticking to them. The smooth liquid state and slight expansion while setting allowed the quick drying plaster to infill even the most intricate contours of a mould.
Flatter, smaller objects in low relief usually require only one mould to cast the object. For more complex objects, with a raised surface, the mould would have to be made from a number of sections, known as piece-moulds. These pieces are held together in the so-called mother-mould, in order to create a mould of the whole object. Once the object has been cast from this mother-mould, the piece-moulds can be easily removed one by one, to create a cast of the three-dimensional object.

Plaster cast of a stone window grille with arabesque pattern, which apparently comes from the madrasa at Qal'at al-Kabsh, Cairo, built by Sultan Qa’itbay in 1475-6.

Plaster casts from a variety of historic monuments across Cairo were made to decorate the ‘maison arabe’ of the French aristocrat, the Comte Gaston de St Maurice (1831-1905), which was built for him between 1872 and 1879. The most popular ornament seems to have come from the buildings constructed during the reign of Sultan Qa’itbay (r.1468-96), however the impressive Mosque-Madrasa complex of Sultan Hasan was the next most represented building among St Maurice's cast collection.

St Maurice lived in Cairo for twenty years, serving as equerry to the Khedive (Ottoman governor) of Egypt. During that period, he accumulated a large collection of historic objects from Islamic Egypt, dating especially from the 14th-16th centuries but also including some 19th-century objects. The V&A acquired about 200 objects from St Maurice collection in 1884.

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