Mosque lamp, ca. 1329–35
Cairo
Free-blown glass, enameled and gilded
Technical Glossary
Cairo
Free-blown glass, enameled and gilded
H. 14 in. (35.56 cm), Diam. 9 3/8 in. (23.89 cm)
Gift of J. Pierpont Morgan, 1917 (17.190.991)
Large glass lamps of this type were commissioned by sultans and members of their court for mosques, madrasas (Qur'anic schools), tombs, hospices, and other public buildings in fourteenth-century Mamluk Cairo. This example bears the name of its patron, Qawsun (d. 1342), emir of the Sultan al-Nasir Muhammad ibn Qalaun (r. 1293–1341 with brief interruptions), and was probably intended for one of his two architectural commissions in Cairo—a mosque or a tomb-hospice complex.
