An Ottoman gem-set sceptre

拍品描述

An Ottoman gem-set sceptre Turkey, 17th century or later In three parts, the surface of each part decorated with inset turquoise and garnet on white metal ground with remains of gilding, the base and top of the sceptre with agate elements, 25.5cm long For another very similar example see Sotheby's 8 October 2014, Lot 147; Christie's 26 April 2018, lot 172 The technique of setting a combination of turquoise and rubies into precious objects is known in both Safavid Iran and Ottoman Turkey. The mounts offered here are likely to have been from a staff or mace created in one of these courts. They would probably have been affixed to a shaft, and may have included other elements, for instance a sphere that was suspended below the hemispherical element in the top of the image. A staff gifted by Shah ‘Abbas of Iran to Patriarch Filaret in 1629 is in the Kremlin Museum (The Tsars and the East. Gifts from Turkey and Iran in the Moscow Kremlin, exhibition catalogue, Washington DC, 2009, no.17, pp.48-49). That staff comprised several individual mounts on a central wooden shaft. Like ours it also has a ground engraved with floral motifs and rubies and turquoise set in high, slightly crude mounts.

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