A RECTANGULAR GILT-COPPER-MOUNTED IVORY CASKET

During the 12th century Norman occupation of Sicily, Islamic artists thought to be working in Palermo produced a wide variety of objects in ivory, mainly for the European market and often for Christian use (Randall, op. cit., p. 151). A very similar casket to the present lot, although of slightly different proportions was included in the 1985 exhibition The Unity of Islam (op. cit., no. 174, pp. 196-7), and is also attributable to a Sicilian workshop at around the same date. It shares with the present example the use of red or black concentric drilled roundels, which were often used to disguise the ends of small ivory pegs linking the panels, as well as being for purely decorative reasons. Another casket with Arabic inscription around the cover and with similar mounts to those found here (Instituto Valencia de Don Juan, Madrid, see Higuera, loc. cit.) is indicative of the geographical spread of such pieces.