Basin belonging to ‘Abd al-Malik

This basin was placed in the Ibn Yusuf madrasah in Marrakech, where it served for several years as a font for a fountain in the ablutions room. Carved from one single block of marble, it contains on its inner surface an original hollowed-out decoration of polylobes ending in striations. Its four outer sides have sculpted decoration. The most damaged side bears a frame displaying aquatic animals passant, beneath a Kufic inscription that runs the length of the basin and mentions the name of the patron, ‘Abd al-Malik[1].

On the central field of the large side one can make out two antelopes on either side of a vegetal axis, a very common motif in the Near East and one that is found already in the art of the Sassanids (224-651) in the Iranian zone. This is perhaps to be understood as part of a hunting scene, rather like the one visible on another marble basin kept in the Alhambra museum in Grenada.

The opposite side displays a beautiful vegetal composition in two registers. The first consists of a rectangular frame adorned with tendrils and interspersed leaves that surrounds a strip containing a succession of fleurons finished off with bifid palmettes, whose stems form a geometric framework. The second register is made up of a strip decorated with flowing bifid palmette tendrils featuring surface ocellus- and ridge-work. These vegetal motifs, marked by a certain dryness in their execution and sometimes a stiffness in their arrangement, are typical of the production of Caliphal Spain, as evidenced by certain sculpted columns in the Great Mosque of Cordoba, or the ivory casket in the Louvre museum[2], which displays the same type of motifs and curvilinear framework.

The two ends of the basin presumably bear similar decoration, though this is preserved on only one of the ends. Two symmetrical strips, each framing an heraldic eagle with fanned tail and half-spread wings, one of which is carrying a pair of ibexes in its claws, are carved on either side of an undecorated recess. Below, two composite animals, probably sphinxes or winged ibexes, confront each other on either side of a fleuron, in a highly symbolic image. In the Muslim and Christian cultures, use of the eagle motif is widespread, appearing in architecture, on textiles or on ceramics; this was also the case in Byzantine culture or in Anatolia during the era of the Seljuks of Rum. (1077-1307). It is also to be found within several muqarnas panels in the palatine chapel in Palermo. It was also much used in heraldry, in particular in Mamluk Egypt: a depiction of a water-clock with musicians features a battlement on which a coat of arms with heraldic eagle[3] is visible. We also know of an important figure whose coat of arms, preserved on a bottle in the Louvre museum[4], featured the image of a similar bird: this figure was Tuquztimur, cupbearer of the sultan Qalawun.

There are at least two other basins of this type in existence, seemingly produced in Spain and bearing similar decorative work[5]; perhaps the localization of these items can best be explained in terms of a Roman and Visigoth influence. Their purpose however remains uncertain: their decoration and shape could point to their having been used as reservoir-tanks, placed in gardens or palatial edifices. The dedication and style of this basin link it to the productions of the Cordoban Caliphate, possibly created for the palace of the royal town of al-Zahira[6], as seems to be the case with the Madrid basin. At any event, how or why this basin was transferred to Morocco remains an enigma.

[2] Casket produced in Madinat al-Zahra or in Cordoba, dated 966, Paris, Louvre museum, inv. UCAD 4417.

[3] Treatise on automata by al-Jazarî, Egypt, 1315, Washington, Freer Gallery of Art, inv. F 1942.10.

[4] Bottle of Tuquztimur, Syria or Egypt, mid-14th century, Paris, Louvre museum inv. OA3365.

[5] Basin from the Museo Arqueológico in Madrid, inv.50428, and basin from the Museo de la Alhambra in Grenada, inv.R.E.243. Fragments have also been found in Seville and Cordoba.

[6] Destroyed in February of the year 1009 A.D..