Description
Rare octagonal box, pyxis, core of stained softwood, veneered with ebony, bone, red paste and bronze. Each side is adorned with an openwork plate of eight eight-pointed stars on two columns in a frame with red paste remains; the body is outlined with fillets at top and bottom; the lid is geometrically decorated with a frieze arrangement of interlaced braids forming an eight-pointed star; bronze trim consisting of hinges, false angles and lanceolate-ended feet, a hinged hasp with a closing plate with trefoil corners featuring three triggers for the passage of a pin, and a movable top suspension ring. Spain, Nasrid period, Granada, 14th/15th century Overall height 13 cm - Overall width 11.7 cm Box alone, H. 10.9 cm - W. 10.1 cm (slight deformation of the lid) This pyxis, which has come down to us in an excellent state of preservation, belongs to a fairly limited corpus of boxes made in al-Andalus featuring ivory or bone plaques with openwork eight-pointed star motifs. Of very similar dimensions, five have been catalogued to date: Private collection, León (fig.a), Instituto Valencia de Don Juan, Madrid, inv. 4867 (fg.b), London Sotheby's sale, June 10, 2020, lot 87 (fig.c), Museum of Decorative Arts, Madrid, purchase 2023, inv. CE 30485 (fig.d), David Collection, Copenhagen, inv. 1/2017 (fig.e). They come from workshops on the Iberian Peninsula during the Muslim occupation, and borrow their technique and decoration from the Arab art of the Maghreb. Several scholars have studied this production and agree that it dates back to the kingdom of Granada, under the Nasrid dynasty (1238-1492). The originality of the box presented here lies in the simplicity of its decoration, which does not use the fine geometric marquetry technique known in Spanish as taracea that can be seen on the five other examples mentioned above. The use of these boxes remains to be determined: some art historians see them as inkwells, others as pyxes, as some were sold by monasteries. The latter hypothesis seems plausible in view of the geometric layout used by Andalusian craftsmen under Muslim rule, which depicts stars as well as crosses. Works consulted : - Á. Galán y Galindo, "Evolución de las técnicas de talla en marfil" in Boletin del Museo Arqueologico Nacional, 29-30-31/2011-12-13, I, p. 5-64 - N. Silva Santa-Cruz, "Entre la ebanisterai y la eboraria: Un probable tintero (Dawät) nazarí y otras taraceas medievales" in Codex Aquilarensis, 31/2015, p. 233-258
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Rare octagonal box, pyxis, core of stained softwood, veneered with ebony, bone, red paste and bronze. Each side is adorned with an openwork plate of eight eight-pointed stars on two columns in a frame with red paste remains; the body is outlined with fillets at top and bottom; the lid is geometrically decorated with a frieze arrangement of interlaced braids forming an eight-pointed star; bronze trim consisting of hinges, false angles and lanceolate-ended feet, a hinged hasp with a closing plate with trefoil corners featuring three triggers for the passage of a pin, and a movable top suspension ring. Spain, Nasrid period, Granada, 14th/15th century Overall height 13 cm - Overall width 11.7 cm Box alone, H. 10.9 cm - W. 10.1 cm (slight deformation of the lid) This pyxis, which has come down to us in an excellent state of preservation, belongs to a fairly limited corpus of boxes made in al-Andalus featuring ivory or bone plaques with openwork eight-pointed star motifs. Of very similar dimensions, five have been catalogued to date: Private collection, León (fig.a), Instituto Valencia de Don Juan, Madrid, inv. 4867 (fg.b), London Sotheby's sale, June 10, 2020, lot 87 (fig.c), Museum of Decorative Arts, Madrid, purchase 2023, inv. CE 30485 (fig.d), David Collection, Copenhagen, inv. 1/2017 (fig.e). They come from workshops on the Iberian Peninsula during the Muslim occupation, and borrow their technique and decoration from the Arab art of the Maghreb. Several scholars have studied this production and agree that it dates back to the kingdom of Granada, under the Nasrid dynasty (1238-1492). The originality of the box presented here lies in the simplicity of its decoration, which does not use the fine geometric marquetry technique known in Spanish as taracea that can be seen on the five other examples mentioned above. The use of these boxes remains to be determined: some art historians see them as inkwells, others as pyxes, as some were sold by monasteries. The latter hypothesis seems plausible in view of the geometric layout used by Andalusian craftsmen under Muslim rule, which depicts stars as well as crosses. Works consulted : - Á. Galán y Galindo, "Evolución de las técnicas de talla en marfil" in Boletin del Museo Arqueologico Nacional, 29-30-31/2011-12-13, I, p. 5-64 - N. Silva Santa-Cruz, "Entre la ebanisterai y la eboraria: Un probable tintero (Dawät) nazarí y otras taraceas medievales" in Codex Aquilarensis, 31/2015, p. 233-258
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