A SILVER-INLAID MORTAR, KHORASAN, 13TH CENTURY

The octagonal body with flat everted rim, eight loop handles within four stylized bovine clasps, the brass body incised and inlaid with silver, designed with two anthropomorphic naskh friezes on body and four roundels enclosing a seated figure in the centre against a foliate scroll ground.25 cm. diam.InscriptionsBoundless honor, wealth, and happiness to the owner’wa’l-thana'..and praise'This impressive mortar displays the ingenuity of thirteenth-century craftsmen working in Khorasan, famed for their silver-inlay techniques. The present example is shaped as a simple bronze mortar, whose use would have lain in the pounding of herbs and spices for medicinal purposes. Yet it was inlaid with detailed silver designs, including an anthropomorphic naskh frieze on a vegetal ground near the rim and base of the mortar, as well as four roundels which enclose a seated cross legged figure. The seated figure may be read possibly as the personification of a planet or zodiac sign as in a comparable example in the Metropolitan Museum of Art (inv. no. 91.1.527a,b). The mortar in the Metropolitan Museum was made for Abu Bark ‘Ali Malikzad al-Tabrizi and is dated to the late-twelth/early thirteenth century. It features figural medallions, two of which are identified as Jauzahr, the eighth planet, depicted as a seated figure flanked by snakes with dragon-heads. The figure on the present example can also be interpreted as a courtier, but the use of an anthropomorphic frieze above and below suggests an astronomical reading.CATALOGUE NOTEThe present example features eight suspended rings that are held together by four stylized bovine heads which are comparable in style to a bronze mortar of the same period in the Victoria and Albert Museum (inv. no. M.24-1963, see Melikian-Chirvani 1982, pp. 161-162). It is rare to find an object of everyday use elevated to such an artistic rank and the silver inlay and complexity of design on the present mortar point toward a luxurious commission probably for an apothecary's shop.