Coffee box

This cylindrical box is in the shape of a mausoleum with a cupola. The cover, with a ring on top, is connected to the body of the piece in the back with a hinge and held in place in the front with a little clasp. Its shape recalls Andalusian pyxides from the Umayyad epoch (10th to 11th centuries) designed to store jewellery, precious stones and perfume[1], but also inlaid metal inkstands from Syria and Iran, produced between the 12th and 15th centuries[2]. This box from Algiers was used to store coffee, as the inscription decorating the base of the lid suggests.

A tapestry pattern of stylised foliage develops across its entire surface. The foliage emerges from an undulating flourish that forms circular ‘compartments’. This type of ornamentation is of Greek origin and was later developed in Byzantine and Mediterranean art. It is a pattern that originated with the first Samarrian style (Iraq, 9th century)[3].  It is also found in embroidery and earthenware productions from Western Anatolia and Istanbul and was frequently employed by the Ottomans after the introduction of Renaissance and Baroque styles beginning in the 18th century. The vegetal ‘compartments’ are reminiscent of textile tapestry motifs.  

Two cursive inscriptions decorate the box: one in Arabic on the lid and the other in Ottoman where the box opens. The first inscription ends in an emblem of a crescent, the extremities of which reach upwards towards a disk resting on a staff. The use of the crescent, frequent in Phoenicia and Mesopotamia, was introduced in the West by the Phoenicians and the Carthaginians. This symbol decorates the top of steles in North Africa[4], where it is placed above the goddess of protection, Tanit. For the Muslims, however, the symbol was mostly used in calculating the lunar cycle or in fixing the date of pilgrimages and the beginning and end of Ramadan. It appeared on the first Arabic-Sassanian coins, set above the crown of the sovereign, an example being a piece stamped by ‘Abd al-Malik ibn Marwân in Damascus (695). It is also visible on the mosaics of the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem (691). During the 15th century it was present on monuments in Palestine, in Istanbul and Algiers (palace)—to which many Carpaccio paintings testify—as well as on numerous objects in different materials. Despite its widespread use, this symbolic motif had no religious significance and the crescent did not become the emblem of the Ottomans until the late 18th century.  There are no other examples of this composition (a crescent topped by a disk resting on a staff), whereas the staff and crescent (signifying a bow and arrow), used by the Hittites as an emblem of independence and sovereignty, shows a close resemblance to the official seals called çeç möbrü that the Ottoman State used to stamp commodities.

[1] For example the ivory box in the name of ’al-Mughira ibn ‘Abd al-Rahmân al-Nasîr, dated from 357 H./968, in preservation at the Louvre (OA 4068) and the Zamora box, commissioned by al-Hâkim II for ‘Abd al-Rahmân’s mother, which dates from 353 H./964, in preservation at Madrid’s National Museum, N°52113.

[2] Hérat inkstand, 12th to 13th centuries, Vaduz, Furusiyya Art Foundation.

[3] Zakî 1981, pl. n° 11.

[4] Representations of the crescent began as early as the 5th century on the steles of the Carthage Tophet and on steles from ’Hadrumete (Sousse) and ’El-Hofra (Constantine), cf.: Camps 1994.