Lamp

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Lamp

Eastern Mediterranean, 12th-13th century

Glass

Glass, applied handles

5 1/4 x 3 3/4 in. (13.34 x 9.53 cm)

The Madina Collection of Islamic Art, gift of Camilla Chandler Frost (M.2002.1.13)

Art of the Middle East: Islamic and Contemporary

Not currently on public view

Curator Notes

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Lighting is an essential requirement of daily life in all times and places. In the early and medieval Islamic periods, glass lamps were used to illuminate small private spaces or, if grouped together, a larger public space such as a mosque. Probably intended for personal use, this lamp, with its bulbous body and flaring neck, has a distinctive shape that continued in later Islamic times and was especially popular for so-called mosque lamps from fourteenth-century Egypt, where they were enlarged and embellished with gilding and enameling (see 50.28.4).

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Bibliography

Lo Terrenal y lo Divino: Arte Islámico siglos VII al XIX Colección del Museo de Arte del Condado de Los Ángeles. Santiago: Centro Cultural La Moneda, 2015.
Komaroff, Linda. Beauty and Identity: Islamic Art from the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 2016.

Lo Terrenal y lo Divino: Arte Islámico siglos VII al XIX Colección del Museo de Arte del Condado de Los Ángeles. Santiago: Centro Cultural La Moneda, 2015.
Komaroff, Linda. Beauty and Identity: Islamic Art from the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 2016.
Atil, Esin. Renaissance of Islam: Art of the Mamluks. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1981.
Komaroff, Linda. Islamic Art at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Los Angeles: Museum Associates, 2005.

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