An engraved silver-plated brass casket Andalusia, probably 15th/ 16th CenturyAn engraved silver-plated brass casket Andalusia, probably 15th/ 16th Centuryof decagonal form, with lifting convex lid surmounted by a circular boss, on three compressed globular feet, engraved to the lid and each side with an interlace of split-palmettes overlaid with flowerheads on a hatched ground 27 cm. highProvenanceFormerly in a private French Collection.Large polygonal boxes are not common in Islamic metalwork whilst decagonal boxes are rarer still. However, intriguing parallels with the shape of the present lot can be drawn with taracea boxes produced in Spain during the Nasrid period in the mid 14th Century which rest upon small globular feet. One example of such a pyxis is in the church of Villasandino near Burgos (see José Ferrandis Torres, Marfiles árabes de Occidente, Madrid 1935–40, vol.II, p.268, cat.170, pl.lxxxviii). Two large decagonal taracea boxes are known, one in a private London collection, and another in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London (270-1895), which is dated to the first half of the 15th Century and has a similar diameter to the present lot. Parallel hatching became common in Andalusian metalwork in the 11th century AD. Metalworkers used a thin rectangular tool with five circular indents that, when punched into the surface of the metal, left a row of raised dots. The primary intention was to create a textured background of dots, but the rectangular tool led to a secondary effect of lines that were often parallel (see the study by Mirco Bassi in A. Contadini (ed.) The Pisa Griffin and the Mari-Cha Lion, Pisa, 2018; see also J. Raby's contribution to the same volume on the oil lamp from Montefrio and other related metalwork of the 11th century.) This form of rectangular stamp tool became less common in the 13th and 14th centuries, but by then parallel hatching for the background of metalwork was a well established aesthetic, and was produced by engraving as well as punching. It occurs, for example, on the lock plate of the Nasrid 13th or 14th Century ivory box in Zaragoza (see J.D. Dodds (ed.), Al-Andalus, The Art of Islamic Spain, New York, 1992, pp. 266-267, cat. no. 52). ), and its influence even extended to late 13th Century ceramics from Murcia (ibid, cat. 107). It also occurs in some of the roundels on one of the finest examples of Nasrid metalwork, the bucket in the Museo Arqueologico Nacional in Madrid, attributed to the second half of the 14th century (ibid, cat. 59). Another example is the Nasrid silvered and gilded copper pyxis sold at Sotheby's (Arts of the Islamic World, 8 October 2014, lot 92).The tradition of using rectangular punches to create a textured background spread to Christian silversmithing in Spain and continued well after the Reconquista. Yet, even where punches were not used, the use of engraved parallel hatching was widespread and long-lasting in Spain, as for example on a ciborium made in Saragossa in 1573 offered at Christie's, Five Private Collections, 5-19 July 2022, lot 211.In summary, the decagonal shape and size of the present lot relate to wooden boxes from 15th Century Nasrid Andalusia, some earlier examples of which rested on small oblate feet. The rather loose scrollwork has parallels in Nasrid and Mudéjar work, though it is arguably more florid, and the use of dense parallel hatching as a ground for the scrolls is an argument in favour of an Andalusian origin. As there are no metal counterparts yet known, it cannot be placed in a developmental sequence, which makes it difficult to date precisely, though a range from perhaps 1450-1550 seems probable.