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al-Jazari's "Book of Knowledge of Ingenious Mechanical Devices": The Castle Water Clock
Egyptian
Mamluk period
February 1354 (Safar 755 A.H.)
Object Place: probably Cairo, Egypt
Medium/Technique
Ink, watercolor and gold on paper
Dimensions
Height x width: 39.8 × 27.5 cm (15 11/16 × 10 13/16 in.)
Credit Line
Museum purchase with funds from the Francis Bartlett Donation of 1912 and by contribution
Accession Number14.533
NOT ON VIEW
CollectionsAfrica and Oceania, Islamic Art
ClassificationsBooks and manuscripts
In the early thirteenth century, a scholar and engineer named Isma‘il Ibn al-Razzaz al-Jazari wrote a famous treatise called Kitab fi ma‛rifat al-hiyal al-handasiyya, or The Book of Knowledge of Ingenious Mechanical Devices. The text offered detailed descriptions of a series of elaborate machines designed to delight and impress the elites at the court where he served, in eastern Anatolia. Al-Jazari’s text and its illustrations belong to a long tradition of studies about these kinds of devices, including Greek compendia on mechanics and mathematics. This page belongs to a copy of the text that was produced in Mamluk Egypt in 1354, and was copied by Muhammad ibn Ahmad al-Izmiri for a Mamluk ruler.
DescriptionPage of an Arabic manuscript on mechanical devices, showing an elaborate hydraulic clock in the form of a palace gateway.
ProvenanceBy 1912, Victor Goloubew (b. 1879 - d. 1945), Paris [see note 1]; 1914, sold by Goloubew through M. Meyer-Riefstahl to the MFA for $76,999.81 (total price for 14.532-700). (Accession Date: June 4, 1914)
NOTES:
[1] Victor Goloubew was born in Russia but lived in Paris by the time of this acquisition. He formed this collection of Persian and Indian miniature paintings and exhibited it at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris from 1912 to 1914 (Paull, Florence Virginia. "The Goloubew Collection of Persian and Indian Paintings." Museum of Fine Arts Bulletin. Vol. XIII. No. 74. (February 1915) 1-16).
NOTES:
[1] Victor Goloubew was born in Russia but lived in Paris by the time of this acquisition. He formed this collection of Persian and Indian miniature paintings and exhibited it at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris from 1912 to 1914 (Paull, Florence Virginia. "The Goloubew Collection of Persian and Indian Paintings." Museum of Fine Arts Bulletin. Vol. XIII. No. 74. (February 1915) 1-16).