Pen Box with Ink Well
CultureSyrian
Datelate 19th century
MediumCast brass with encised silver and copper inlay
DimensionsOverall: 1 1/2 × 3/4 × 13 inches (3.81 × 1.91 × 33.02 cm)
Credit LineGift of Katherine Harvey from the estate of Mrs. J. F. Huckel
Object number44-9/4
On View
Not on viewCollections
DescriptionRepresenting the "Adoration of the Magi". Said to be from the Church of Loise-en-Brie. Features arabic language written in thuluth script.Exhibition HistoryEchoes: Islamic Art and Contemporary Artists, The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri, August 31, 2013-April 27, 2014, no cat.
More Than Words: The Art of Calligraphy Across Asia, The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri, October 21, 2017-July 8, 2018, no cat.
The arts associated with Islamic calligraphy extended beyond the written page. Calligraphers had an array of containers and impliments that were also carefully designed and ornamented. This pen box would have held a calligrapher’s tools, including reed pens, scissors, and knives in the rectangular compartment and ink, in the attached lidded box. The pen box is decorated with calligraphy, formed in inlaid silver, written in the thuluth script, laid in a field of vegetal designs, including split-leaf arabesques.
Mrs. J. F. Huckel (nee Minnie Frances Harvey, 1871-1943), Leavenworth, KS, and Kansas City, MO by 1943;
Inherited from Mrs. J. F. Huckel by her niece Katherine Harvey (1892-1962), Kansas City, MO and Santa Barbara, CA, by 1944;
Her gift to The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, 1944.
No published references known at this time.
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