Mosque lamp makes £5.1 million at Bonhams

Mosque lamp makes £5.1 million at Bonhams

– highest price achieved for a glass object at auction

The 14th-century Sarghitmish lamp from Egypt, one of the rarest and most important examples of Islamic glass ever offered at auction, sold for £5,130,400 at Bonhams Islamic and Indian Art Sale on Tuesday 12 November 2024 amid competitive bidding in the room and on the phones.

The Sarghitmish lamp is now 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. Illuminating a Mosque was considered an act of religious patronage, so Mosque lamps were usually dedicated by Sultans and Dignitaries.

This particular lamp was commissioned by the Mamluk Emir Sarghitmish, a powerful chief during the reign of al Nasir-Hasan. The lamp carries both his name and the Sultan’s name, as well as the blazon of Sarghitmish. It was most likely hung in the Madrasa of Sarghitmish, a very prominent Mosque, that still stands today in Cairo’s Medieval quarter.

Bonhams sale website