Metal History

National German museum

Hama, Syria.

The earliest examples of inlaid metal date to the 10th century. These include oil lamps and bowls cast in bronze and decorated with copper inlay. The craft was born in the East Iranian dynasty of the Savavids and the Dynasty of the Ghasnavids in what is now Afghanistan. Soon, the technique spread westward to Mosul in Iraq, Damascus and Cairo.
When Mosul fell to the Moguls in the 13th century, Damascus became the center of the craft. From the mid 13th> century until the beginning of the 14th century, boxes, vases and candlesticks were exported to Europe through Venice.
Some of these beautiful pieces became models for Venetian craftsmen, who adopted the art of inlay.
In Damascus in the 17th-18th centuries, the craft seems to have died out, only to be revived at the end of the 19th century in response to demands from the burgeoning local bourgeoisie as well as the interest in Islamic object d’art created by Orientalism in Europe. Both demanded the stylistic patterns of the Mamluks who ruled in Syria in the 14th-15th centuries.