A Marinid painted wood calligraphic panel North Africa or Spain, 14th Century

A Marinid painted wood calligraphic panel North Africa or Spain, 14th Century of rectangular form, carved with a series of cusped arches containing mirror inscriptions in kufic on a ground of split-palmette interlace, interspersed by smaller arches filled with foliate motifs, the spandrels with split palmettes, the upper border with a band of quatrefoil motifs, decorated in yellow, red, black brown and white paint, framed 100 x 29.5 cm. Footnotes: Provenance Formerly in a Private Spanish Collection, Seville. This lot is accompanied by an export license from the Ministerio de Educación, Cultura y Deporte (no. 2022/10933) and Ciram Carbon-14 Test Report 112-OA-1207R-2. Inscriptions: a repeat of mulk , 'Sovereignty (is God's)', in positive and negative This strongly carved wood panel is a fine and compact example of one of the most distinctive approaches to decoration in Muslim architecture. It belongs to a type of wooden facing that occurs in Morocco particularly in the 13th and 14th centuries. Carved woodwork typically formed about one-third of the decorative treatment of architecture produced during the Marinid period (1244–1465 CE) and typically formed the upper elements of the decorative schemes with stucco, and then zellij or mosaic tilework below. This panel, with its row of boldly cusped arches containing a mirror inscription in crisply angular Kufic, reflects the aesthetic found in major Marinid constructions, such as the madrasa of Abu'l Hasan (1332–1342) and the Bou Inaniya (1350–55), both of which are in Fez, the capital founded by the Marinids. A comparable example is in the Kasbah Museum, Tangiers (Inv. No. 90.B.3). Even the broad fillet frame, with its row of small quatrefoil rosettes, is typical of the era. Over time the rosettes developed more petals, suggesting that this comes in an earlier phase of the style. Increasing complexity in design seems to be a feature in the development of Marinid woodwork, and this panel has a balance in its design which suggests a date of production in the first half of the 14th Century. This stylistic dating is supported by the result of the Carbon 14 test which yielded date ranges of 1282-1328 (with 43.8% probablility) and 1347-1395 (51.7%). The frieze is further distinguished by its colourful painting. Much of the woodwork in Marinid buildings has lost its polychromy, and there has been little study of the materials and colour schemes. A panel in the Metropolitan Museum (acc.1985.241) has, however, been investigated, revealing that it was repainted at some stage but when it was not possible to determine. (Ekhtiar, Soucek, Canby, and Haidar, Masterpieces from the Department of Islamic Art in the Metropolitan Museum of Art , 2011, pp. 72-73). The same might be true of this panel but, if so, the painting still has considerable age. The Kufic mirror inscription on the Bou Inaniya and the present panels most probably reads mulk , 'Sovereignty'. In a religious context this could promptly trigger a connection to the Qur'an surah al-Mulk (67:1). However, Mulk , also applied to secular sovereignty, so the panel may also come from a palace rather than a religious institution. Given the close connections between the Maghrib and al-Andalus, it is not surprising that comparable woodwork also occurs in Spain. Elaborate wood panels, with painted polychromy, were found in the palace the Condesa de Peñaflor in Seville, the remnants, it is assumed, of an earlier, possibly Almohad building on the site (see Claire Déléry Le Maroc Médiéval, Un empire de l'Afrique à l'Espagne , 2014, cat. 229). Panels, with rows of cusped arches and kufic mirror inscriptions, that are very reminiscent of the panel presented here, are also in Museo Arqueológico in Seville. They are said to come from Seville, but their precise find-spot is not recorded, and they were acquired in 1946 from an antiques dealer in Cordoba (see Donatella Giasante, La Coleccion de madera Hispano-Arabe y Mudejar del Museo Arquologico de Sevilla , in Laboratorio de Arte 15, 2002). For further information on this lot please visit Bonhams.com