Name of Object:

Window screen

Location:

Stockholm, Sweden

Holding Museum:

Museum of Mediterranean and Near Eastern Antiquities (Medelhavsmuseet)

About Museum of Mediterranean and Near Eastern Antiquities (Medelhavsmuseet), Stockholm

Current Owner:

National Museum of Fine Arts, Stockholm. In order to reorganise the expanding collections, the main part of the Islamic collection has been on permanent loan to the Museum of Mediterranean and Near Eastern Antiquities since 1982

Date of Object:

Hegira 10th–13th centuries / AD 16th–19th centuries

Museum Inventory Number:

NM 0049/1927

Material(s) / Technique(s):

Wood; latticework.

Dimensions:

Height 116.5 cm, width 89 cm

Period / Dynasty:

Ottoman

Provenance:

Egypt.

Description:

A wooden panel consisting of a framed latticework is called a mashrabiyya. The area of this mashrabiyya is structured in three zones formed by carved frames of different sizes. Each zone is filled with a geometric design of woodwork. The vertical and horizontal bars of the outer area are combined with diagonals arranged in the same direction in each row giving the impression of a stem and leaf pattern. In contrast, the diagonal bars of the second zone lead away radially from an oval centre forming a pattern of abstract flowers. The hinged aperture situated in the upper part of the second zone is filled with a latticework consisting of round junctions, each with four diagonal bars leading away radially.
The outer frame of the panel, assembled in a different way from the frame of the aperture, might be not original. The ledges are of various widths and are not carved like the two inner ones.
Wooden latticework panels are intended to serve as windows onto the inner courtyard of a house or onto the street.

Wooden panel consisting of a framed latticework, called mashrabiyya. The latticework is formed by vertical, horizontal and diagonal bars arranged in geometrical patterns. Mashrabiyyas serve as windows onto the courtyard of the house or onto the street.

How date and origin were established:

The dating of this object is difficult. The latticework shows no specific features. Since the acquisition is also unknown, there is no terminus ante quem. Furthermore, it lacks a comparative study of the decorative patterns to establish a certain dating. To date, the only feature is the rough surface that could be evidence of a dating earlier than the 13th / 19th century.

How Object was obtained:

Gift to the National Museum of Fine Arts from the estate of Björkman, Paris.

How provenance was established:

Window screens housed in the Louvre Museum, Paris, for which an Egyptian provenance seems to be proved, show a similar structure and design to this screen.

Selected bibliography:

Anglade, E., Catalogue des Boiseries de la Section Islamique, Paris, 1988.
Lane-Pool, S., The Art of the Saracens in Egypt, London, 1886.

Citation of this web page:

Friederike Voigt "Window screen" in Discover Islamic Art, Museum With No Frontiers, 2026.
https://islamicart.museumwnf.org/database_item.php?id=object;ISL;se;Mus01;26;en

Prepared by: Friederike VoigtFriederike Voigt

Friederike Voigt has an MA in Iranian studies, history of art and social science and is currently working on her doctoral thesis on wall tiles in architectural decoration of Qajar Iran. Since 2004 she has been a project-related curator at the Museum for Mediterranean and Near Eastern Antiquities in Stockholm for Museum With No Frontiers. She studied at Humboldt University in Berlin, at the University of Tehran and archaeology at the University of Halle-Wittenberg. She taught Persian language at several universities in Germany. She was an assistant curator at the Department of Near and Middle Eastern Cultures at the Museum of Ethnology, State Museums of Berlin. Her main fields of interest are the material culture of Iran, especially of the Qajar period, and contemporary Iranian art.
Copyedited by: Monica Allen

MWNF Working Number: SE 28