Casket with birds and roundels

Casket with birds and roundels, Sicily. Museum no. 4535-1859

Casket with birds and roundels
1200–50
Sicily
Museum no. 4535-1859

Some 200 ivory caskets decorated in the Islamic style were made in Sicily in the 12th and early 13th centuries. They were probably made for the court as marriage gifts or for storing precious objects. This casket shows the usual style of painting found on the Sicilian ivories. The most common motifs were floral scrolls within roundels, and various types of birds - those with the crest at the lower corners of the casket are probably peacocks. The same birds are also woven into contemporary Sicilian textiles. On this casket, the joins between the small panels of ivory are disguised by rudimentary plant motifs.

Casket with Christian figures

Casket with Christian figures, Sicily. Museum no. 603-1902

Casket with Christian figures
1100–1200
Sicily
Museum no. 603-1902

The form and most of the decoration of this large casket are entirely characteristic of the ivory caskets made in Sicily, apart from the prominent figures of Christian saints painted at the front. This may indicate that it was commissioned for use in a church, and in fact this casket used to belong to the treasury of Bari Cathedral, on the south-eastern coast of Italy. The casket also has a long poetic inscription in Arabic, invoking blessings and happiness on the owner, in a manner that is very common on secular works of art made in the Islamic world.

Casket with a reused Fatimid base

Casket with a reused Fatimid base, Sicily. Museum no. 700-1884

Casket with a reused Fatimid base
Sicily, 1200–50; base probably Cairo about 1150
Museum no. 700-1884

This casket illustrates the presence of Egyptian works of art in Sicily. Its base was formed from a cut-down panel. It is made from wood incrusted with small, shaped pieces of ivory, set into a dark resin, a technique which relates to a small group of objects made in Fatimid Egypt, probably in the early 12th century. Perhaps the original object from which this panel came was worn out or broken with use but, as an exotic import, was too highly valued to be thrown away, so it was trimmed down and reused.

Ceiling of the Cappella Palatina

Ceiling of the Cappella Palatina, Sicily, Palermo. Museum no. 7903-1936

Albumen print of the ceiling of the Cappella Palatina
Palermo, Sicily
Ceiling about 1143; print about 1890–1910
Museum no. 7903-1936

This is one of the best surviving examples of an Islamic ceiling in the Mediterranean, though it crowns a Christian religious space – the royal chapel of the palace in Palermo. This building was created for the Norman king of Sicily, Roger II, and was probably completed in time for his coronation in 1143.

The three-dimensional decoration of the ceiling is formed from small cells of carved wood in a technique known in Arabic as muqarnas . The central structure of the ceiling is a pattern of stars and crosses, and every element is covered with paintings in the Islamic style. These include dancers, musicians, seated drinkers and mounted hunters, and every border carries Arabic inscriptions in Kufic script, containing blessings, in the manner of Islamic decorative arts.

A team of carpenters and painters may have been imported from Cairo to produce this most luxurious royal commission. Ironically, few buildings of this period survive in Egypt itself, so now the 'Arabo-Norman' architecture of Sicily provides important information about the lost Fatimid palace architecture on which it was modelled.

Oliphant

Oliphant, Southern Italy. Museum no. 7953-1862

Oliphant
Southern Italy
1000–1100
Museum no. 7953-1862

An oliphant is a horn formed from a whole elephant tusk. Oliphants may have been used in hunting, but are so heavy that they may equally have been symbols of status or land ownership. Oliphants are often elaborately carved, since the craftsman had the whole thickness of the ivory at his disposal. Many surviving oliphants show the influence of Islamic decoration. This example is covered with roundels containing animals with disproportionately large bodies, and tails which terminate in a palmette or tiny head. This way of depicting animals was used on Fatimid ceramics and other works of art, which were imported by sea into the coastal cities of Sicily and southern Italy