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An unusual hawking drum made from the top of an Ottoman or Mamluk helmet Turkey or Egypt, 16th century and later image 1
An unusual hawking drum made from the top of an Ottoman or Mamluk helmet Turkey or Egypt, 16th century and later image 2
An unusual hawking drum made from the top of an Ottoman or Mamluk helmet Turkey or Egypt, 16th century and later image 3
An unusual hawking drum made from the top of an Ottoman or Mamluk helmet Turkey or Egypt, 16th century and later image 4
An unusual hawking drum made from the top of an Ottoman or Mamluk helmet Turkey or Egypt, 16th century and later image 5
Lot 43

An unusual hawking drum made from the top of an Ottoman or Mamluk helmet
Turkey or Egypt, 16th century and later

Islamic and Indian Art
22 May 2025, 11:00 BST
London, New Bond Street

Sold for £2,560 inc. premium

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An unusual hawking drum made from the top of an Ottoman or Mamluk helmet
Turkey or Egypt, 16th century and later

of flaring conical form with hide skin, the body engraved and decorated with a band of inscription, above a band of vegetal designs
18.2 cm. diam.

Footnotes

Provenance
Henri Rene d'Allemagne Collection, 1979.
Acquired by the current owner from M Roderick d'Allemegne, grandson of Henri Rene d'Allemagne (1836-1950).

The present lot is formed of the upper section of a helmet, such as a Turkish 15th/ 16th century example in the Metropolitan Museum, New York (Object No. 04.3.460). Hawking drums were beaten by the falconer in order to scare prey into the air, and were purportedly particularly useful in duck hunting due to the reflection of the sound on the water (see K. Folsach, Fighting, Hunting, Impressing: Arms and Armour from the Islamic World 1500-1850, Denmark, 2021, p. 185). They may also have been used to recall the falcon. A 19th Century Turkish falconry drum (bazz) of comparable form is in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (89.4.2810). A 16th Century Ottoman hawking drum in The David Collection, Copenhagen, is illustrated in Folsach (op cit, p. 185, no. 77). For a further 16th Century Ottoman example sold at Christie's, see Islamic Art, Indian Miniatures, Rugs and Carpets, 25 April 1995, lot 301.

Additional information