All Collections
Previous Next
Back to Collection

Pair of Door-knockers

MTW 1585 | Egypt or Syria | 15th century AD

Print Download

Artwork Details

Title: Pair of Door-knockers

Date: 15th century AD

Location: Egypt or Syria

Materials: brass or bronze, cast and engraved

Dimensions: 29.8 x 25.2cm; diameter of base-plate 17.5cm

Accession Number: MTW 1585

Other Notes:

The door-knockers are in the form of openwork lozenges on an axial boss in the form of a stylised lion’s head. They bear no inscription, but at the centre is the composite three-field blazon of a Mamluk amir, with the pen box of a secretary in the Chancery (dawadar), two cups of a cup-bearer (saqi) and the napkin of the head of the royal pantry (amir tishtkhanah). This blazon is recorded on the pious foundations of a number of 15th-century amirs in Egypt and Syria.

The half-palmettes are still recognisably indebted to the type of volutes resembling the gaping jaws of dragons seen, for example, on the suspension bracket for an astronomical instrument [see MTW 825], and through these to dragon ‘door-handles’ [see MTW 1407, MTW 1428]. In this context it is significant that the engineer al-Jazari’s original design for the dragon door-handles of the Artuqid palace at Diyarbekir also depicts them with an axial boss in the form of a lion’s head.

Bibliography:

J.M. Rogers, The Arts of Islam. Masterpieces from the Khalili Collection, London 2010, cat.119, pp.106–7.

Related Artworks

Small Flask

JLY 1075
Jaipur, India

Youth in European Dress and Young Woman with Indian Headdress, from a Shahnamah

MSS 1000.1, MSS 1000.2
Isfahan, Iran

Dish

POT 684
Syria

Calligraphic Composition

CAL 154
Ottoman Turkey

Mail and Plate Shirt

MTW 1158
Northern Caucasus
for the Persian or Ottoman market

Two ‘Hands of Fatimah’

JLY 1923
India, possibly Hyderabad (Deccan)

Calligraphic Practice Sheet

CAL 266
Qazvin, Iran

Single Folio from a Four-part Qur’an

KFQ 90
Iran, Isfahan

Carpet with Star Medallions

TXT 213
Ushak, western Anatolia, Turkey

Mosque Lamp

GLS 572
Egypt

Single Folio from a Qur’an

KFQ 45
Middle East or North Africa

Single Folio from a Qur’an

KFQ 50
Middle East

Five Folios from a Qur’an

KFQ 52
Middle East or North Africa

Two Folios from the ‘Blue Qur’an’

KFQ 53
North Africa or Spain

Single Folio from a Qur’an

KFQ 60
probably the Hijaz

Two Bifolios from a Qur’an

KFQ 82
Middle East

Single Folio from a Qur’an

KFQ 93
Middle East or North Africa

Single Folio from a Large Qur’an

KFQ 96
probably North Africa

Single Folio from a Qur'an

KFQ 34
Middle East

Single Folio from a Qur’an

KFQ 84
Middle East or North Africa

Zoom

Close

Khalili Collections Logo

Share this page