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Onbekend: het museum bewaart het stilzwijgen
Victoria and Albert Museum
Londen, Verenigd Koninkrijk
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- Ongewijzigd sinds
- 25 sep 2026
- Bron
- De eigen collectiegegevens van het museum
About the sculpture
Plaster cast of a medallion carved with an arabesque design. When it was acquired, this object was originally a set with four spandrels, of which only A remains in the V&A. The other 3 spandrels in the set were deaccessioned in the 1930s.
The original ornament from which this was cast was located above the smaller entrance doorway of the Wikala (caravanserai) of Sultan Qa’itbay, near the mosque of al-Azhar in Cairo, built in 1477. Plaster casts from a variety of historic monuments across Cairo, especially those built during the reign of Sultan Qa’itbay (r.1468-96), were made to decorate the ‘maison arabe’ of the French aristocrat, the Comte Gaston de St Maurice (1831-1905), which was built for him between 1872 and 1879.
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St Maurice lived in Cairo for twenty years, serving as equerry to the Khedive (Ottoman governor) of Egypt. During that period, he accumulated a large collection of historic objects from Islamic Egypt, dating especially from the 14th-16th centuries but also including some 19th-century objects. The V&A acquired about 200 objects from St Maurice collection in 1884.
Victoria and Albert Museum
Gegevens
- Inventarisnummer
- 1020-1884
In de catalogus
Bronnen
- Victoria and Albert Museum: the museum's own open data · opgehaald 3 dagen geleden
- Afbeelding: Victoria and Albert Museum — © Victoria and Albert Museum, London
