Mosque Lamp (late 1800s): Art, History and Details

Mosque Lamp (late 1800s) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

In late 1800s Europe, there was a renewed interest in art from the Islamic world. Mosque lamps, made for Mamluk rulers and their high officials in the 1300s, were particularly prized. Phillippe-Joseph Brocard, a Parisian collector and craftsman, is renowned for reviving the Mamluk technique of enameling and gilding glass and produced many lamp reproductions. This lamp used to be in his collection and it is possible that it was made by him. The top Qur’anic inscription likens divine light to a shining glass lamp.

Object facts

• Title: Mosque Lamp
• Date: late 1800s
• Culture: France
• Type: Glass
• Technique: glass with enameled and gilded decoration
• Dimensions: Overall: 39.5 cm (15 9/16 in.)
• Collection: Islamic Art
• Department: Islamic Art
• Accession number: 1981.10

A detail from the museum

This colorful lamp would have been suspended by its six handles. When lowered to refill its oil, it could stand securely on its splayed foot.

Collection credit

John L. Severance Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Wiet, Gaston. Catalogue général du Musée arabe du Caire; lampes et bouteilles en verre émaillé. Le Caire: Impr. de l'Institut français d'archéologie orientale, 1929.
• Mayer, L. A. Saracenic Heraldry, a Survey. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1933.
• “Recent Important Acquisitions: Made by Public and Private Collections in the United States and Abroad.” Journal of Glass Studies, vol. 24, 1982, pp. 87–114.

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.