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Lot 294

An important Mamluk rock crystal Intaglio Ring
Egypt, 14th Century

29 April 2004, 10:30 BST
London, New Bond Street

£4,000 - £6,000

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An important Mamluk rock crystal Intaglio Ring
Egypt, 14th Century

the gold bezel with eight trefoil ornaments at the cardinal points and set with a rock crystal in the form of an eight-faceted truncated conoid, the flat surface intaglio cut with a lion
2.8 cm. high

Footnotes

Provenance: Acquired by the present owner in London circa 1960.

The Mamluk attribution is made by virtue of comparison of the Lion with the heraldic blazon prominent on the coinage of the Mamluk Sultan Al-Zahir Rukn al din Baybars (658-76 AH/ 1260-77 AD). For examples of coins with the Baybars lion, see Paul Balog, "The Coinage of Mamluk Sultans of Egypt and Syria" in American Numismatic Society No. 12, New York, 1964, nos. 28-49, and for a discussion of the lion in this context, see L.A. Mayer, Saracenic Heraldry, Oxford, 1933, p. 9. Lot 474 in the present sale is a Mamluk pottery shard also depicting a heraldic lion. For a stone plaque of the same period depicting a left-facing lion with raised right paw and back-curling tail also facing the viewer, see Esin Atil, Renaissance of Islam: Art of the Mamluks, Washington D.C., 1981, no. 108.

Additional information