Name of Object:

Decorative panel

Location:

Berlin, Germany

Holding Museum:

Museum of Islamic Art at the Pergamon Museum

About Museum of Islamic Art at the Pergamon Museum, Berlin

Original Owner:

Herz Bey Collection, Cairo

Date of Object:

Hegira 6th century / AD 12th century, perhaps around AH 550 / AD 1155

Museum Inventory Number:

I. 612

Material(s) / Technique(s):

Wood.

Dimensions:

Height 25 cm, width 46.3 cm

Period / Dynasty:

Fatimid

Provenance:

Amri Mosque, Qus, Upper Egypt.

Description:

It is thought that this panel is part of the decorative woodwork of the Amri Mosque in Qus, and also that it formed part of the covering of the minbar’s pulpit. The minbar was first mentioned in the 1870s by A. Prisse d’Avennes. Two large forked leaves, with carefully inscribed carvings, are positioned at the centre of the panel. They enclose a central palmette blossom. The tips of both leaves become an almost geometrical pattern of flat stylised tendrils. The main body of both leaves is framed by a ten-pointed star, which connects at the top and the bottom to the panel’s outer frame. Their upper and lower points overlap each other in the form of spiralling tendrils. Vine leaves and small grapes can be seen growing from the tendrils, which are also covered with small hooks and forked leaves. A delicate tendril pattern also covers the surface of the main central forked leaves. The decorative woodwork on panels from the AH 5th / AD 11th century al-Hakim Mosque is similarly well designed, although they are not as finely carved as this piece.
The town of Qus had developed into one of Egypt’s principal trading towns when the central mosque of Salih Tala’i was built in AH 555 / AD 1160. The famous minbar of Qus had been built only a little earlier. Goods traded with central Africa were reloaded at the town of Qus; Qus traded with Yemen and stored merchandise for trading with India. Writing in AH 579 / AD 1183, Ibn Djubair related the town’s rise to the crusades. The town was also a meeting place for pilgrims from Egypt and the Maghreb. Scholars used the nisba ‘al-Kusi’ (from Qus), testifying to the town’s significance. In the 19th century, the town was Egypt’s second most important Arabic trading town.

Islamic art excels in the ornamental designs often called arabesques. This is a superb example of a composition from Fatimid Egypt. It shows a geometrical star pattern surrounding stylised palmette leaves in the centre enclosed by symmetrical undulating vine scrolls ending in grapes or vine leaves.

How date and origin were established:

The mosque from which this decorative panel came was built in 550 / 1155, so this panel could be dated to around that time.

How Object was obtained:

Bought by B. Moritz in Cairo, 1906.

How provenance was established:

The stylistic components of this decorative panel suggest that it could have formed part of a larger wooden decorative piece found in the Amri mosque in Qus in Upper Egypt.

Selected bibliography:

Ettinghausen, R., “Ägyptische Holzschnitzereien aus Islamischer Zeit, Berliner Museen”, Berichte aus den Preussischen Kunstsammlungen 54, 1933, pp.17–20. Kühnel, E., “Der Mamlukische Kassettenstil”, Kunst des Orients 1, 1950, pp.55–68. “Kus”, in Enzyklopädie des Islam, Vol. 2, Leiden; Leipzig, 1927, p.1241. Meyers Konversationslexikon, Leipzig; Vienna, 1905, Vol. 11, p.877. Museum für Islamische Kunst Berlin, Catalogue, Mainz, 2001, p.31.

Citation of this web page:

Annette Hagedorn "Decorative panel" in Discover Islamic Art, Museum With No Frontiers, 2024. https://islamicart.museumwnf.org/database_item.php?id=object;ISL;de;Mus01;42;en

Prepared by: Annette Hagedorn
Translation by: Maria Vlotides, Brigitte Finkbeiner
Translation copyedited by: Monica Allen

MWNF Working Number: GE 53