Middle East, Metalwork. Curved disc, possibly a tray cover, brass with traces of silver inlay, with engraved decoration, Mamluk Syria, 1400-1450

Engraved brass shield, made from the base of an inlaid dish.

Rachel Ward has written that this item, "has been cut down and the edges wrapped around iron wire for strenght. It was probably once a dish with a flat rim like [one in the British Museum (OA 1878.12-30.707)], but without a raised omphalos. The decoration is almost identical to that of the British Museum [example] and was clearly designed for a dish with a raised omphalos; differences are limited to tiny details, such as forked rather than straight deer horns."

Rachel Ward identified eight other dishes of this type, including another in the V&A (Museum no. 2438-1856). Five have a raised omphalos, and three do not.

"The distinctive shape of the dishes ... is inspired by European dishes. Both types were also made in 15th-century Valencia in lustre pottery (imitating metalwork), with coats of arms that indicate that they were exported to Italy and elsewhere in Europe in addition to being popular among the grandees of Spain."

"Apart from the shields, most of the designs on these dishes can be traced back to Mamluk metalwork of the second quarter of the 14th century. Almost all of the motifs (phoenix, exotic blossoms, animal combats and processions, birds in interlace, knotted Kufic, lattice etc.) appear on the huge tray bearing the name of Sultan al-Nasir Muhammad, datable to the 1330s, although on the tray they were subordinate to the bold titular inscriptions that provide the focus of the design."

[For this tray, see James Allan, Metalwork Treasures from the Islamic Courts, Doha: Museum of Islamic Art, and London: Islamic Art Society, 2002, no.29.]

Ward further points out that, "These dishes demonstrate the close involvement of Venetian merchants in every stage of their production with detailed instructions for the type of vessel to be made, its shape, size and decoration. The layout, including details of the decorative motifs, must have been drawn out by the workshop designer after discussions with the merchants and approved by them before being given to the inlayers to copy." This dish "proves that the metalworkers were copying drawings: it is inconceivable that a craftsman copyign a three-dimensional dish would include the decoration of the near-vertical sides of the raised centre."

See Rachel Ward, ‘Plugging the Gap: Mamluk Export Metalwork, 1375–1475’, in Facts and Artefacts – Art in the Islamic World – Festschrift for Jens Kröger on his 65th Birthday, ed. Annette Hagerdorn and Avinoam Shalem, Leiden and Boston, 2007, pp.265–6, 267, and fig.3.

1738-1892