A pair of monumental carved hardwood and bone-inlaid doors, probably Egypt, 19th century or earlier

Butterfield's, 2 July 1987, lot 951

Sotheby's, London, 18 April 2007, lot 214

Commentators in the nineteenth century developed a specific interest in the Mamluk era and came to regard it as the golden age in Egyptian history. An increased awareness of the legacy of Islamic art and architecture especially among Europeans resulted in a revival of the Mamluk artistic style. Parallel to the construction of Mamluk-revival buildings, European residents in Egypt, whose number had rapidly increased in the second half of the nineteenth century, began to adorn their homes with mosaics and woodworks salvaged from the demolition of old buildings (Vernoit 1997, pp.229-230). In the most opulent iterations of this phenomenon, leading collectors such as Charles Gillot collected spectacular fourteenth century panels and commissioned leading Parisian woodworkers to form them into new structures (see Christie’s, Ancienne Collection Charles Gillot (1853-1903), 5 March 2008, lot 41, and two sets of doors from the collection of Octave Borelli Bey, sold in these rooms, 20 April 2016, lots 84 and 86.

Aside from the geometric frame, the present doors are set with carved wooden panels that appear to indicate up to three separate phases of production. The first comprises polygonal panels deeply carved on two registers with arabesque strapwork leading into a pointed foliate terminal. Comparably carved panels are found in a thirteenth century panel from the minbar made for Sultan Lajin in the Victoria and Albert Museum (inv. no.1051-1869). The second comprises polygonal panels deeply carved on one register with comparable arabesques leading to terminals in the form of bunches of grapes. The third, possibly related to the second, comprises the central star shaped panels that are carved with comparably deep arabesques on one register as those on mentioned above, although they do not appear to be inset into the frame, but rather integral.

Had the doors been constructed in their current form in the nineteenth century, one would expect a uniformity to the decorative scheme, or at the very least an order to the alternating patterns of the polygonal panels. However, there does not appear to be a pattern to the placement of these panels within the doors, with the grape terminal and foliate terminal panels mixed within each section. This might indicate that the person who commissioned these impressive doors had them created in order to preserve and display a collection original Mamluk panels in their possession.