Bonhams’ Upcoming Sale to Feature Nasrid or Post-Nasrid “Taracea” Chair
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A Nasrid or Post-Nasrid “Taracea” Chair will be offered for sale at Bonhams’ upcoming sale, “Islamic And Indian Art Including the Lion and the Sun, Art From Qajar Persia” that will take place on April 30, 2019, in London. It will be featured in lotBonhams’ Upcoming Sale to Feature Nasrid or Post-Nasrid “Taracea” Chair
A Nasrid or Post-Nasrid “Taracea” Chair will be offered for sale at Bonhams’ upcoming sale, “Islamic And Indian Art Including the Lion and the Sun, Art From Qajar Persia” that will take place on April 30, 2019, in London. It will be featured in lot 25 at the auction with a pre-auction estimate of £ 30,000 - 40,000. “The Nasrids developed a distinct aesthetic defined by elaborate geometric motifs, which evolved from North African and Iberian sources. The micromosaic-inlaid decoration on this chair is executed in a technique known in Spanish as taracea from the Arabic word tarsi or ‘incrustation.’ It was used in decoration throughout Spain and North Africa and was present in court commissions under the Almoravids and the Almohads, as well as the Nasrids,” states the auction house. As Bonhams mentions, the present chair has the curving ‘X’ frame with scrolling arms resting on splayed stretchers while the surface profusely inlaid with hardwood, metal, and bone geometric elements forming a repeat design of octagonal cartouches containing eight-pointed stars interspersed by four-pointed star motifs. The borders are endowed with bands of alternating bone and wood triangles, later green velvet seat, and backrest with gold-colored metal-thread trim and tassels secured with domed tacks. The auction house also added, “Antecedents of X-frame chairs are depicted in material culture as far back as the New Kingdom Egypt and Mesopotamia, although it was the Romans who elevated this functional, portable piece of furniture to a symbol of power in the sella curulis, the seat of magistrates and in the campstool of the Roman emperors, the sella castrentis. The X-frame chair continued to represent a manifestation of power in many cultures; a painting of Thomas Cranmer, archbishop of Canterbury by Gerlach Flicke in the National Portrait Gallery (NPG 535) executed in 1546 depicts Cranmer seated on a similar chair to the present lot, signifying a fashion for this type amongst Europe’s powerful elite throughout the 16th-century.” Giving more information about the present chair, Bonhams says, “The present lot is a fine example of the type, of which few others remain: another closely related example in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, dated to the 16th-century is published in Otto Kurz, ‘Folding chairs and Koran stands,’ in Richard Ettinghausen (ed.), ‘Islamic Art in the Metropolitan Museum of Art,’ New York 1972, no. 10, pp. 304-5. A further example is in the Alhambra Museum, Granada, inv. no. 3315 (published in ‘Arte Islamico en Granada,’ Granda, 1995, p436-7, no. 188), and is dated to the 14th-15th century. Two carbon tests were done on the present lot by RCD RadioCarbon dating, ref. RCD-9067 and 9066. The first gives a 95 percent probability of a date between 1320 and 1428 and the second gives 95 percent probability of a date between 1468-1635.” https://www.blouinartinfo.comFounder: Louise Blouin Read more