Ashmolean Eastern Art Online, Yousef Jameel Centre for Islamic and Asian Art

This compact candlestick belongs to a small group of vessels associated with the town of Siirt, in modern-day Turkey. Siirt was home to a metalworking industry in the 13th and 14th centuries and was influenced by the metalwork production of the celebrated city of Mossul. Siirt metalwork exhibited many original features, including the medium and manufacturing technique - cast high tin bronze - and the decorative repertoire. This candlestick has successfully adapted one of the most recurrent ornamental devices of Siirt metalwork - that of eight-petal rosettes. Here the rosette is incorporated in to fine geometric strapwork. An almost identical example is now in the Islamic art collection of the British Museum, London (Museum no: 1955,0214.2).