Pair of wooden doors, with carved ivory panels set in a radiating geometric pattern of four ten-pointed stars, Egypt, Mamluk period, ivory: 1300-1350, doors: 1870-1883

Pair of panel doors, tropical hardwood, with inset ivory panels forming a geometric pattern of four radiating ten-pointed stars. The ivory panel components are stars, kites and polygons, each carved with an outlined curvilinear design of foliate scrollwork and some strapwork, now slightly worn. The wooden doors are nineteenth-century replicas, while the ivory panels are fourteenth-century Mamluk objects from Cairo.

PAULPIT DOOR, in two leaves. Wood beading in geometrical pattern, filled with ivory panels carved with arabesques. Small patterns at top and bottom filled with carved ivory scroll-work. Frame modern. From Cairo. Saracenic. Probably 14th centy. H. 6 ft. 7 in., W. of each leaf, 1 ft. 6 3/8 in. Bought (St. Maurice Collⁿ), 240l. the two.
Above description taken from ‘List of Objects in the Art Division, South Kensington Museum acquired during the Year 1884’. London: Eyre and Spottiswoode, 1885. p. 83

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 pair of wooden doors was made in nineteenth-century Cairo, using reclaimed ivory panels from the early fourteenth-century Mamluk period. The panels are organised in a complex geometric pattern, formed by four ten-pointed stars with radiating lines. Each tiny panel is carved with minute curling scrolls and leaf-shapes. The inlaid doors belonged to Count Gaston de Saint Maurice, a prolific collector of Islamic art objects, who was based in Egypt. The doors were most probably installed and used in his Cairo home, which was built in the neo-Mamluk style made popular during the 1860s and 1870s.

886-1884