This item has been added to the Database within the Explore Islamic Art Collections project. Information is available in: English, Arabic.
Panel with abstract decoration
Los Angeles, United States of America
Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA)
About Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), Los Angeles
Hegira late 3rd century / AD late 9th century
M.73.5.405
Wood, carved
64.2 x 20.3cm
Tulunid
Egypt
This carved panel comes from Egypt, where wood, on account of its rarity and cost, was decorated with care and used in contexts generally reserved for luxury materials. Although it is impossible to say how this wood panel was used originally, it is possible to assign it to the late 3rd/late 9th century on the basis of its distinctive decoration. Decorated in the bevelled style, the panel depicts highly stylised leaves that have been transformed into abstract motifs. As is typical of this style, it is impossible to distinguish between background and foreground or between natural and abstract forms. The bevelled style may have first been developed at Samarra, in northern Iraq, which replaced Baghdad as the Abbasid capital, from Hegira 221–279 / AD 836 to 892. This style was quickly adopted in other parts of the Islamic empire including Egypt, as exemplified by the decoration in the Mosque of Ibn Tulun, Cairo.
It is datable on the basis of its distinctive decoration in the so-called bevelled style as in the mosque of Ibn Tulun and can likewise be ascribed to Egypt.
Collection of Nasli M. Heeramaneck (1902-1971), New York, until 1973 (sold to); LACMA, The Nasli M. Heeramaneck collection, gift of Joan Palevsky.
The style of the panel relates to the architectural decoration of the mosque of Ibn Tulun in Cairo, completed in Hegira 265 / AD 879.
Komaroff, Linda, Islamic Art at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Rev. ed., Los Angeles: Museum Associates, 2005: 14, fig. 9.
Komaroff, Linda, Lo Terrenal y lo divino: Arte islámico siglos VII al XIX Colección del Museo de Arte del Condado de Los Angeles, Santiago, Chile: Centro Cultural La Moneda, 2015: 35, 207.
Komaroff, Linda, Beauty and Identity: Islamic Art from the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 2016: 87.
Pal, Pratapaditya (ed), Islamic Art: The Nasli M. Heeramaneck Collection, Los Angeles: Museum Associates, 1973: 176.
LACMA Staff "Panel with abstract decoration" in Explore Islamic Art Collections. Museum With No Frontiers, 2024. https://islamicart.museumwnf.org/database_item.php?id=object;EPM;us;Mus21;12;en
Prepared by: LACMA Staff
MWNF Working Number: US1 12
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