The Arts of the Islamic World on Sotheby’s

01/04/2011 by Islamic Arts Magazine

Art News

LONDON / Sotheby’s sale of the Arts of the Islamic World to take place in London on the 6th April will offer an array of beautiful and rare objects, paintings and manuscripts which highlight the achievements of artists and craftsmen from across the Muslim world. The sale is particularly rich in works which reveal the cultural efflorescence which took place during the Middle Ages on the Mediterranean seaboard from Islamic Spain to the Levant.

The Arts of the Islamic World sale comprises an array of beautiful and rare objects, paintings and manuscripts from across the Muslim world. Included in the sale is a group of works from the Mediterranean seaboard, which during the Middle Ages enjoyed a period of cultural efflorescence from Islamic Spain to the Levant. Representing the heritage of Al-Andalus and North Africa is a pair of Almohad-period bronze doorknockers originating from the twelfth century (lot 299, estimated at £180,000 – 250,000), and a carved wooden door panel from fifteenth/sixteenth-century Spain or Morocco (lot 301, estimated at £100,000 – 150,000).

LOT 299 Almohad-period bronze doorknockers

LOT 301 A carved wooden door panel

Further highlights from Al-Andalus include three Hispano-Moresque lustre albarelli from fourteenth/fifteenth-century Malaga and Manises (lots 292, 294-5, estimated at £200,000 - 250,000), and a rare thirteenth-century leather bookbinding tooled with the arms of Castile and León (lot 293, estimated at £50,000 – 70,000).

LOT 292, 294-5 Three Hispano-Moresque lustre albarelli

LOT 293 A rare thirteenth-century leather bookbinding

From the Eastern Mediterranean region are two important works of art produced under the Fatimid and Mamluk dynasties: a monumental marble water jar, Egypt, eleventh-twelfth century (lot 288, estimated at £200,000 – 300,000), and a silver-inlaid brass armorial candlestick made for the Mamluk dignitary, Sayf Al-Din Qushtumur, majordomo of Tuquztamur Al-Hamawi who served as viceroy of Egypt and Syria during the mid-fourteenth century (lot 325, estimated at £2,000,000 - 3,000,000).