Mashrabiyyah, turned wooded screen with inlaid ivory elements, Egypt, Mamluk period, 1400-1499

Screen created from individual hand turned wood elements. Some of the elements have been carved into triangles and these pieces have inlaid with ivory, to create a chequerboard effect. The screen has been placed within a modern frame.

This panel was originally part of a minbar (or Islamic Pulpit). It functioned as a decorative railing to the minbar. It was made from wood - each element was hand turned. In Egypt woodturning is an important local craft: it is known as mashrabyah.

This object is an example of a decorative mashrabyah (or hand turned screen). This type of inlaid mashrabyah work can still be seen on Mamluk minbars in Cairo (the Mamluks were a military elite who ruled Egypt between 1250 and 1515).

The wooden frame is a later addition which was added when the object entered a private collection. It probably dates to the late 19th century.This object formed part of the Meymar collection – a collection of Islamic and Middle Eastern objects collected by the Turkish bureaucrat known as Dr Meymar who was based in Cairo in the 1860s.This collection was exhibited at the Exposition Universelle in Paris in 1867, from where the South Kensington Museum (V&A) made a large number of purchases to enhance their growing collection of Islamic art. Together with the collection of Gaston de Saint-Maurice (accessioned in 1884), the Meymar collection was the foundational collection of ‘Saracenic’ art – or the art of the Mamluks (ruled Egypt and Syria 1250-1517) – in this museum.

This panel was possibly once part of a minbar (or Islamic Pulpit). It was probably made in Cairo during the fifteenth century. The panel has been constructed from individual hand turned elements known as mashrabyah. Mashrabyah (or wood turning) is a craft used in Egypt to make projecting windows and other items such as screens. The panel has also been inlaid with ivory elements. This screen was probably made during Mamluk rule (a military elite who ruled Egypt and Syria between 1250 -1517 A.D).

1072-1869