Beads

Elements from a Necklace

The Nasrid Spanish school of jewelry, like that of Mamluk Syria, represents the continuation in late medieval times of the tradition of fine filigree and granulation work most associated with Fatimid (tenth to eleventh century) Egypt and Syria. Whether or not there were cross-fertilizations in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries between Spain and the eastern Mediterranean, the great likelyhood is that the Nasrid school essentially developed out of earlier (tenth to twelfth century) Spanish work, the latter examplified by a group now in the Walters Art Gallery in Baltimore.

Cloisonné enameling is characteristic of Nasrid Spanish jewelry and also appears in earlier Spanish and Fatimid work. The cartouches running around the middle of each of these beads bear single-wire Arabic inscriptions proclaiming "Glory is God's alone".

Manuel Keene in [Berlin 1981]

Inscription: On enameled cartouche on each bead in Arabic:
Glory is God’s Alone

J. Pierpont Morgan (American), New York (until d. 1913; his estate 1913–17; gifted to MMA)

"Masterpieces from The Metropolitan Museum of Art New York." In The Arts of Islam. Berlin, 1981. no. 62, pp. 158–59, ill. p. 159 (b/w).