Fifteenth-Century Enameled and Gilded Glass Made for the Mamluks: The End of an Era, the Beginning of a New One

Abstract

The present article deals with fifteenth-century production of enameled and gilded glass in the Mamluk period, a little known aspect of an industry that saw its heyday during the late thirteenth century and the first half of the fourteenth. Usually dismissed as virtually non-existent after the turn of the fifteenth century, the scale and technical and artistic qualities of Mamluk glass unquestionably declined; four surviving mosque lamps, however, help to reconstruct an essential history of the craft in Cairo from the 1410s to the 1470s. These four lamps, which are very similar to the well-known fourteenth-century production in shape, dimensions, and decorative program, include enameled and gilded inscriptions that mention the names of their patrons and can therefore be studied in an appropriate context. Two lamps are dedicated to the Mamluk sultan al-Mu'ayyad Abu Nasr Shaykh (r. 1412-21) and were specifically made for his madrasa (Qur'anic school) built in 1410-15. The third one carries the name of the powerful emir Qani-bay al-Jarkasi (d. 1462), who served in various important positions under the rule of the sultan al-Malik al-Zahir Jaqmaq (r. 1438-53). The last lamp is in the name of the sultan al-Malik al-Ashraf Qait-bay (r. 1468-96). While there is no question that the first three lamps were made in a Cairene workshop, thus offering evidence of both a continuity of production and an obvious artistic decline, the object in Qait-bay's name has always been regarded as an export of European origin (Venice or, more recently, Barcelona) on the basis of its decoration and of the presumed disappearance of the industry in Egypt in the late fifteenth century. In the article, I suggest that, after all, Qait-bay's lamp may represent the swan song of a declining production in Cairo before the demise of the Mamluks and the Ottoman conquest.