- Title
- Box
- Date Made
- circa 1640
- Period
- Ottoman (1281-1924)
- Medium
- Tortoiseshell, mother-of-pearl, wood, ivory and bone inlay
- Dimensions
- 8 3/4 x 13 x 8 3/4 in. (22.23 x 33.02 x 22.23 cm)
- Accession Number
- M.2005.125
- Collecting Area
- Art of the Middle East: Islamic
- Curatorial Notes
By the second half of the sixteenth century Ottoman woodworkers had begun to employ inlays of mother-of-pearl and tortoiseshell, two technically difficult to work materials. The tortoiseshell was generally laid over metal foil to give it a lustrous quality, and mother-of-pearl plaques were frequently inlaid with black mastic to further emphasize their luminosity. Both techniques were used to enhance this boldly decorated box, which, like other such surviving boxes, was likely intended to store a precious manuscript. The main decoration is of a type associated with Ottoman court art in which three circles (sometimes accompanied by a double wavy line) are arranged to form an endless repeat pattern.
- Selected 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.
"2005-2006 Selected Acquisitions." LACMA Insider 4, no.1 (2006): 4-7.
- Komaroff, Linda. Beauty and Identity: Islamic Art from the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 2016.
- Komaroff, Linda. Collecting Islamic Art at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art: A Curatorial Perspective. Los Angeles: Art Catalogues; LACMA, 2017.
