Decorative Inlay

This sophisticated ivorywork offers an insight into the court culture of the eastern Mediterranean lands. The four animal-combat motifs on the vertical panels – eagles or lions attacking gazelles – are symbols of princely power and thus also refer to the courtly milieu from which the other images are taken. The upper panel shows falconers with their hunting dogs. Between the riders are two courtiers carrying gazelles. On the lower panel carousing princes enjoy music and song: there are flutists and lutenists, and one female lute-player is dancing. There are more musicians on one of the side-panels, while on the other are a drunkard and, representing the idea of the grape harvest, a farmer with a basketful of grapes. All the figures are surrounded by an openwork background of vine tendrils. The ivory thus reflects the multicultural world of the eastern Mediterranean, in which Christians in their vineyards produced the intoxicating liquor forbidden to the Muslims, but which was nonetheless popular with the higher classes. The caliphs of Cairo were in the habit of attending – as well disguised as possible – the boisterous festivities of the Christians, to give themselves over, against a background of music and song, to the pleasures of wine and to fleeting amorous adventures. This richly detailed carving, which probably decorated a throne, offers a fascinating symbolic representation of courtly life, and at the same time a vision of eternal life in paradise. Probably produced in Cairo, it shows a certain similarity to woodcarvings from the palaces of the Fatimid caliphs.