https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/448443 This post is an alternative_view of post #413. Description from the Met Museum: Late Antique and Byzantine pyxides generally had flat lids, but the lids covering the cylindrical vessels of this Andalusian group are all domical. Thus, the missing lid of this example would probably have been domical as well. Made principally for the personal use of Umayyad nobility, these containers held precious aromatics and cosmetics.
Catalogue entry from the Met Museum: This pyxis, or cylindrical box, belongs to a group of ivory boxes and caskets that became synonymous with the artistic production of luxury objects under the caliphate of the Umayyad dynasty of Cordoba. Skillfully carved and often gilded or painted with colored pigments, such objects were often presented as gifts to commemorate an event or occasion and were sometimes inscribed with the name of the recipient. These elaborately decorated pyxides served both as carriers of multivalent social and political meanings, encoded in their iconography, and as objects of aesthetic delectation. They frequently contained precious aromatic substances, such as ambergris, musk, and camphor, as recorded in the poetic inscriptions on one example. The inscriptions commonly found on the lids of pyxides give the names and titles of the patrons, blessings and good wishes for the owner, and even the signatures of craftsmen. In this incomplete example, however, the knobbed lid and the metal fittings that originally held the lid in place are missing.
The body of this pyxis displays a deeply carved decoration composed of intertwined vines forming two rows of heart-shaped compartments that enclose birds of prey. These addorsed birds are depicted either perched on a branch or standing with outspread wings. The delicate stems of the vines terminate in the large, luxuriant leaves at the top, recalling the crown of a tree, under which the birds are sheltered. A narrow interlace border, typical of such ivory boxes, frames the composition.
Caliphal ivories produced in the royal workshops at the same time as this example show a complex iconographic decorative program that includes human and animal figures set against a dense and varied foliate decoration. However, the simplified composition and sparse vegetation of this pyxis have led to the suggestion that it was made in a secondary workshop.
Source: Olga Bush in [Ekhtiar, Soucek, Canby, and Haidar 2011]
Open Access As part of the Met's Open Access policy, you can freely copy, modify and distribute this image, even for commercial purposes.
https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/448443
This post is an alternative_view of post #413.
Description from the Met Museum:
Late Antique and Byzantine pyxides generally had flat lids, but the lids covering the cylindrical vessels of this Andalusian group are all domical. Thus, the missing lid of this example would probably have been domical as well. Made principally for the personal use of Umayyad nobility, these containers held precious aromatics and cosmetics.
Catalogue entry from the Met Museum:
This pyxis, or cylindrical box, belongs to a group of ivory boxes and caskets that became synonymous with the artistic production of luxury objects under the caliphate of the Umayyad dynasty of Cordoba. Skillfully carved and often gilded or painted with colored pigments, such objects were often presented as gifts to commemorate an event or occasion and were sometimes inscribed with the name of the recipient. These elaborately decorated pyxides served both as carriers of multivalent social and political meanings, encoded in their iconography, and as objects of aesthetic delectation. They frequently contained precious aromatic substances, such as ambergris, musk, and camphor, as recorded in the poetic inscriptions on one example. The inscriptions commonly found on the lids of pyxides give the names and titles of the patrons, blessings and good wishes for the owner, and even the signatures of craftsmen. In this incomplete example, however, the knobbed lid and the metal fittings that originally held the lid in place are missing.
The body of this pyxis displays a deeply carved decoration composed of intertwined vines forming two rows of heart-shaped compartments that enclose birds of prey. These addorsed birds are depicted either perched on a branch or standing with outspread wings. The delicate stems of the vines terminate in the large, luxuriant leaves at the top, recalling the crown of a tree, under which the birds are sheltered. A narrow interlace border, typical of such ivory boxes, frames the composition.
Caliphal ivories produced in the royal workshops at the same time as this example show a complex iconographic decorative program that includes human and animal figures set against a dense and varied foliate decoration. However, the simplified composition and sparse vegetation of this pyxis have led to the suggestion that it was made in a secondary workshop.
Source: Olga Bush in [Ekhtiar, Soucek, Canby, and Haidar 2011]
Open Access
As part of the Met's Open Access policy, you can freely copy, modify and distribute this image, even for commercial purposes.