Pyxis of Zamora

Ivory is a material that has been used since Antiquity in the Mediterranean and was present as much in the Christian kingdoms of the Middle Ages as during the Islamic Empire. Imported mostly from Africa to supply al-Andalus, it remained an expensive material, its products and crafts destined and reserved for high society. Andalusian productions of ivory were perhaps influenced by the importation of Byzantine and Iranian luxury objects. They reached a golden age in the 10th and 11th centuries, which was hardly surprising considering the political context of the period[1].

This box, a testimony to the quality of ivory at the time, was sculpted out of an elephant’s tusk. Cylindrical in shape, it has a truncated lid topped by a tarred button for lifting the casket. The body and lid are joined by a hinge in silver engraved with a burin and enamelled in black. This type of box called a pyxis was widespread in ancient Greece where it was constructed out of various materials (bronze, wood, ivory, silver). They were used to store jewellery, medicinal products, cosmetics and incense. Byzantine art adopted this particular form which was transmitted to Hispano-Islamic art. A bud divided in quarters by deep moulding is the characteristic shape of the pyxides of al-Andalus, often recalling the shape of a fruit (an orange or a pomegranate).

Like so many of the objects in ivory produced in the 10th and 11th centuries, its sinewy and deeply carved ornamentation creates an impression of density across its entire surface. With the arrival of the Almoravids and Almohads, this style disappeared from al-Andalus and was replaced by marquetry and painted ivory. The decorative repertory was essentially comprised of vegetal motifs interspersed with confronted or addorsed animals (peacocks, gazelles, birds), as well as scenes of leisure and drinking….

This pyxis is no exception to the rule: all along its vertical axis are mirror images of flourishes, palmettes and leaf forms. Within this rich and rigorous foliage emerge four pairs of confronted gazelles, above them the same number of delicate peacocks in the same pose in the style of herons, and, above, addorsed birds with their heads turned to face each other. The small four- and six-petalled flowers with buds in their centre are a characteristic feature of Cordoban classicism. The entire surface of the decoration is sculpted with the wire and tip of the burin, making for grooved stems and bevelled leaves. This type of ornamentation with intertwining animal and vegetal motifs was often employed on pieces designed for the women of the royal family or for princes. The lid is decorated at its base with a Kufic inscription, its vegetal ornaments animated by addorsed birds. We learn from the inscription that this piece was commissioned by the caliph al-Hakam II for his favourite concubine, Subh, the mother of the princes ‘Abd al-Rahmân and Hishâm. Al-Durrî, who is mentioned during the construction process, was the Slavic slave of al-Hakam II, charged with supervising the manufacture of a number of the sumptuous objects produced in the palatial workshops.

This piece is a perfect illustration of the refinement that characterized high society and the sovereigns of al-Andalus during the Córdoba Caliphate. Every effort was made to equal, if not surpass, the extravagance of Abbasid society in Baghdad, which was itself the inheritor of the magnificent Umuyyads and of the ancient courts of Persia, China and India.