A Khurasan feline-form incense burner, Persia, 12th century

While various zoomorphic vessels are known, feline-shaped incense burners seem to have gained predominance during the early twelfth century. The openwork pattern on the present piece is reminiscent of the decorative programmes on two related incense burners, one in the Cleveland Museum of Art (inv.no.1948.308, published in E. Baer, Metalwork in medieval Islamic art, 1983, New York, p.57, cat.no.41) and the other in the David Collection, Copenhagen (inv.no.48/1981), currently on loan to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. These delicately carved palmettes can typically be found on eleventh century Nishapur pottery, see for example a dish sold in these rooms, 23 October 2019, lot 209, and another in Sotheby's Paris, 18 November 2013, lot 19. Their presence on such vessels testify to the assimilation of Byzantine tastes and techniques by Persian metalworkers. 

Two other examples in the Musée du Louvre (inv.no.AA 19) and the Museum für Islamische Kunst (inv.no. I.1/73) present similar ceramic-incrusted eyes painted in turquoise. Overall, all the pieces from this group are connected by a voluntary omission of proportions in favor of expressive abstraction. For that reasons, shapes and decoration tend to vary widely from one feline to the other, although they all retain a characteristic mischievous expression. The present example relates to a similar incense burner sold in these rooms, 27 October 2021, lot 191.