RARE OTTOMAN TORTOISESHELL AND MOTHER-OF-PEARL INLAID CABINET

Project Details

RARE OTTOMAN TORTOISESHELL AND MOTHER-OF-PEARL INLAID CABINET

Ottoman Empire

Late 17^TH – Early 18^TH Century

Height: 111 cm, Width: 54 cm., Depth: 26 cm.

Of rectangular form, elaborately inlaid throughout with tortoiseshell and mother-of-pearl with foliate details to front and geometric designs on sides, with two hinged doors, decorated with shamsa medallions and stylized arches above and below on the outside and chequered design on the inside, opening to reveal two shelves and three short frieze drawers, with three additional drawers in the lower section, on bracket feet.

The earliest appearance of tortoiseshell in Ottoman art appears to be on a bookbinding dated circa 1560 and was widely used after the third quarter of the 16th century (E. Atil, The Age of Sultan Suleyman the Magnificent, exhibition catalogue, Washington, 1987, cat. 49a). The combination of tortoiseshell with mother-of-pearl in Ottoman woodwork decoration became extremely popular by 1600.

Cabinets of this type were usually produced to store valuable objects, art works, as well as important manuscripts, primarily Qur’ans. The elaborately inlaid 16^th century Ottoman Qur’an cabinets in the Museum of Turkish and Islamic Art, Istanbul, appear to be the prototypes of this type. Nazan Ölçer, et al. Museum of Turkish and Islamic Art, Akbank, Istanbul, 2002, p. 258. A late 17^th – early 18^th century example, obviously designed for storing manuscripts, is in the Topkapi Palace Museum Library (the old Ağalar Mescidi).

In terms of design, the six stylized arches, above and below, on the outside of the two hinged doors bear striking resemblance with an Ottoman gameboard, dated circa 1530-1550, in the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), museum inventory number: M.2007.100, please see the link; https://collections.lacma.org/node/214858 Also see the exhibition catalogue, Linda Komaroff et al, Gifts of the Sultan – The Arts of Giving at the Islamic Courts, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Yale University Press, New Haven and London, exhibition held between June 5 – September 5 2011, cat. 126, p. 255. Following the 16^th century aesthetic of the LACMA gameboard, the horizontal shamsa medallions in the middle -located between the six stylized arches- also have been repeated on the doors of the present cabinet.

A closely related 17^th century Ottoman calligrapher’s chest, similarly decorated with shamsa medallions is in the Topkapi Palace Museum, Istanbul (8/48). See the exhibition catalogue, Eski Cekmeceler, Topkapi Sarayi Muzesi Yayinlari, Istanbul, 1956, no. 4, Cat. No. 12.

A comparable, albeit later, 18^th century Ottoman preacher pulpit, on similar bracket feet, is in the Mosque of Sultan Abdulhamid I (r. 1774-1789), (Hamid-i Evvel Camii) in Istanbul. See, H. Örcün Barışta, Osmanlı Dönemi Istanbul Cami ve Türbelerinden Ağaç İşleri, Atatürk Kültür Merkezi, Istanbul, 2009, Fig. 454, p. 204.

The present cabinet is a rare survival which belongs to a small group of late 17^th – early 18^th century Ottoman woodwork inlaid throughout with tortoiseshell and mother-of-pearl.

Provenance

Ex-Private European Collection.

Categories: Metalwork & Woodwork

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RARE OTTOMAN TORTOISESHELL AND MOTHER-OF-PEARL INLAID CABINET

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