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Auction of Islamic Art Shines a Light on Rare GloriesBy SOUREN MELIKIAN
Published: April 27, 2012
LONDON — The accelerating surge of interest in history came out spectacularly at the auction scene on Wednesday. It was reflected in the three highest prices at Sotheby's, where the subject was art from the Islamic world.
Sotheby's
A page torn from a royal manuscript of the "Shah-Nameh" (Book of Kings) was auctioned Wednesday for £1.39 million.
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Sotheby's
A 13th-century bronze basin extols a sultan, Abu'l-Harith Qara Arslan ibn Il-Ghazi.
The ultimate rarity of the session was a 13th-century bronze basin with a beautiful shape but only remains of its erstwhile silver and gold inlay, which sold for £361,250, about $584,000.
The importance of the Arab vessel lay in the monumental inscription that runs around the sides and two tiny inscriptions engraved on the rim more than 100 years after the piece was made.
The large inscription spells out the titles and name of a sultan of Turkic stock, Abu'l-Harith Qara Arslan ibn Il-Ghazi, descended from the 12th-century Artuq Shah. Qara Arslan, who from 1261 to 1293 ruled a large area around the city of Mardin, now in southeast Turkey, had no mean opinion of his own persona. The titulature, introduced by a set phrase found on 13th- and 14th-century royal objects, glorifies the sultan in traditional bombastic eulogies. Qara Arslan is hailed as "Our Lord, the Sultan, the King, the Pride of the World and Religion, the Master of Kings and Sultans" and lots more of that ilk.
This wording suggests that the basin was commissioned when the ruler mounted the throne, which appears to be confirmed by the exclusive role of the inscription in the decorative scheme, excepting a band of arabesques at the bottom.
No other vessel to the name of Qara Arslan has been recorded. The mastery of the execution tells us that Qara Arslan, "The Black Lion" in Turkish, was prosperous enough to attract great bronze makers and calligraphers. That is useful historical information.
But what makes the basin unique is the addition of two inscriptions engraved on the rim by his descendants.
One names "Amir" Dawud ibn Malik al-Salih (1368-1376). The title "amir" that Dawud gives himself instead of "sultan" proves that his father, al-Malik al-Salih, who died in 1368, was still alive and ruling. Al-Malik al-Salih, possibly aware of his nearing end, passed on to his son Dawud the splendid basin as part of the dynasty's regal possessions. This provides tangible evidence of the existence of dynastic chattels in the Near East.
Eight years later, Dawud's successor, Majd Ad-Din 'Isa (1376-1406), ordered an inscription to be engraved on the rim. His titles "The Lord, the King" prove that he had ascended to power.
The verified use of the basin for more than a century explains why so much of the inlay is gone, as on so many other royal bronzes.
The history of Qara Arslan's basin does not stop there. In 1406, the Mardin-centered Artuqid sultanate was overrun by another Turkic dynasty, the Qara Qoyunlu. It was soon defeated by the Ottoman sultanate of central Anatolia that kept conquering ever larger swaths of territory, and with that begins part two of the history of Qara Arslan's basin.
Mercury gilding was added inside to cover the loss of inlay in a large rosette on the bottom, erased by wear. The gilding, typical of 16th-century Ottoman fashion, indicates that the basin was still treasured. It got worn, in turn.
Part three of the basin's history begins in 1845. Michelangelo Lanci, an Italian scholar who collected Arabic texts on monuments and objects, saw the basin in Rome at the hands of the jeweler and antiquarian Alessandro Castellani. Lanci published the inscriptions in Volume 2 of his "Treatise on Arab Symbolical Representations and Various Categories of Islamic Inscriptions Wrought on Different Material Supports." Written in Italian, it was published in Paris with a subsidy from King Louis Philippe.
Lanci's reading included minor mistakes and one huge error. The inscriptions naming three sultans were merged into one, as if they concerned a single ruler. The great French Arabist Gaston Wiet recorded the inscriptions in his 1934 general repertory of Arabic inscriptions, amending them as best he could without having seen the actual object.
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