Arts of the Islamic World & India

A Safavid gold-damascened steel plaque, Persia, 16th/17th Century

Auction Closed

October 25, 04:59 PM GMT

Estimate

4,000 - 6,000 GBP

Lot Details

Description

rising from an arched base into a trefoil-shaped head terminating in a suspension loop, two fitting notches at the base, richly decorated with a large central thuluth inscription against gold-overlaid scrolling floral designs and palmettes

19.7cm. height

Please note that there may be restrictions on the import of property of Iranian origin into the USA and some or all member countries of the Gulf Co-operation Council. Any buyers planning to import property of Iranian origin into any of these countries should satisfy themselves of the relevant import regime. Sotheby's will not assist buyers with the shipment of such items into the USA or the GCC. In addition, FedEx and US courier services will no longer carry Iranian-origin goods to any location. Any shipment services would need to be provided by a Fine Art shipping company.

inscriptions:

'Ya Tahir' Oh, [God] the Virtuous

This decorative plaque belongs to a larger group, four of which are published in G. Fehervari and Y.H. Safadi, 1400 years of Islamic art, 1981, cat. no.54a-d, pp.116-7). They each display one of the beautiful names of God, and come with rectangular extensions for fixing the plaques to a display installation. Another plaque from this group was offered in Bonhams, Knightsbridge, 12 April 2000, lot 350.

For a further discussion on similar steel plaques and their relation to 16th century Ottoman artistic production, see Yanni Petsopoulos, 'Three gold-damascened steel finial plaques,' 2017.