Mamluk Brass Basin with Silver Inlay

A monumental basin of flaring profile, the exterior densely worked with epigraphic friezes in thuluth alternating with roundels of mounted huntsmen and falconers. The interior is decorated with a central rosette of radiating fish - an emblem of life and fertility - encircled by a band of running quadrupeds.

Inlaid metalwares of this scale were used in royal ablutions and at the table of the amir, and several are recorded in the inventories of the Bahri Mamluk court.