Title: Mosque Lamp with Suspension-ball
Date: late 19th or early 20th century
Location: Austria or Bohemia
Materials: clear glass with a grey tinge, mould-blown; with enamelled and gilt decoration; applied handles; metal suspension rings attached to silk cord
Dimensions: 32.3 x 22cm (lamp); 70.5cm (overall height, with ball and cord)
Accession Number: GLS 266
Other Notes:
The lamp has six handles and enamelled decoration in red, blue and white. The decorative repertoire includes an inscription interrupted by three medallions, each containing either a phoenix or an inscription, and rosettes, fleurs-de-lis and other floral designs and epigraphic blazons. The suspension-ball is also enamelled, with two epigraphic blazons alternating with two medallions containing fleurs-de-lis. A Mamluk lamp with a similar decorative scheme was transferred in the late 19th century from the mosque of Sultan Hasan in Cairo to the Museum of Arab Art, where it may have served as a model for this European copy. The Mamluk lamp had by that time lost nearly all traces of the gilding that once adorned it.
Bibliography:
S. Vernoit, Occidentalism. Islamic Art in the 19th Century, The Nasser D. Khalili Collection of Islamic Art, volume XXIII, London 1997, cat.180, p.233.
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