A Mamluk enamelled glass mosque lamp made for Chief of Corps Saif ad-din Sarghitmish (d.1358) Egypt or Syria, 1351-1358 AD.
There was a new world record for a glass object at auction at Bonham’s in London when an example of Islamic glass sold for £5,130,400. The Mamluk enamelled glass mosque lamp made for Chief of Corps Saif ad-din Sarghitmish (d.1358) Egypt or Syria, 1351-1358 AD is the highest priced glass object ever sold at auction. It had an estimate of £600,000-1,000,000.
The lamp was consigned by a descendant of Egypt’s first Prime Minister, Nubar Pasha, having been in the family for more than a century. It had been regarded by the family as a decorative piece – it had been used as a vase for dried flowers. Mosque lamps are considered some of the most technically accomplished examples of medieval glassware anywhere in the world. The technique of simultaneously gilding and enamelling glass was almost unique to the Mamluk court, where they were produced in the 13th and 14th centuries for decoration and provision of light in Mosques.