Candlestick

The Mamluk Sultanate was founded when by slave-soldiers who rose to power and ruled over present day Egypt and Syria from the mid-thirteenth century to the start of the sixteenth century. The Mamluks were avid patrons of metalwork, including such objects as candlesticks, lamps and dishes made of bronze with precious metal inlays and often featuring large inscriptions. This particular candlestick is brass with silver inlay. It bearns a large naskh style inscription around its drum divided by roundels containing silver birds, intertwining vines, flowers, and radiating lines.

The candlestick was likely used in the courts of the Mamluk ruler al-Salih Isma’il (r. 1342-45) and his brother Sultan Hasan (r. 1347-51 and 1354-62), the latter of whom was the patron of a monumental Mosque-Madrasa in Cairo.