The object I chose for my Curation Assignment is a brass canteen with silver inlaid in Freer and Sackler Museum. It was made in mid-13th century during the Ayyubid Dynasty in Syria or Northern Iraq. It is considered as “an interesting link between the Christian and Muhammadan art of the Near East” by the celebrated Islamic art historian Maurice Sven Dimand (Dimand 1934, 17).
The canteen both resembles and differs from the the majority of Islamic artworks. Similar to traditional Islamic potteries and miniatures, the border of the central medallion, the edge of the spherical side, and the cylindrical neck are decorated with kufic and naskhi Islamic inscriptions — two dominating variants of Arabic alphabets — of which repeatedly praise and impetrate good fortunes for the owner. For example, the inscriptions around the central medallion means, “Eternal glory and secure life and complete prosperity and increasing good luck and good fortune and pledges and everlasting favor and affluent living and abundant good fortune and lofty victory and enduring power, overwhelming safety, everlasting favor and perfect honor to the owner” (Atil 1985, 124). Vine and animal, two decorative patterns which frequently occur on Islamic artworks, are also detectable on the spherical side, the flat side, the shoulder, and the neck. However, the major element that diverges the canteen from the majority of Islamic arts is the depiction of human figures. Widely known for its rigorous practice of aniconism, Islamic art had almost never comprised any sentient beings until this time period. The presence of such abundant human figures not only suggests the rareness and innovativity of this canteen, but also indicates that this canteen might be an example of the exchange of culture during the 13th century.
The figure subjects can be categorized into two groups: 1) sacred characters related to the life of Christ, 2) individuals from the mundane world. On the spherical side of the canteen, there are four scenarios that art historians identify as Christian images:
The spherical part of the piece has a central concave medallion with the Madonna and Child seated on a throne with two saints at the side and angels above and below… The figure subjects represented in the panels, between the medallions, are scenes from the life of Christ. In the first compartment (beneath the spout) are two scenes: the Nativity, with the three wise men and shepherds, and the Baptism. In the next compartment (from right to left) we see the Circumcision of Christ in a temple with three domes. The third compartment shows an elaborate composition representing the Entry of Christ into Jerusalem; Christ is seated on a donkey while the inhabitants of Jerusalem are spreading carpets or are seated in the trees rejoicing at the arrival of Christ (Dimand 1934, 17).
Some of the scenes, despite of significant variations, are recognizable (such as the enthroned Virgin Mary and baby Jesus), while the rest still remains debatable for art historians. For instance, Ranee A. Katzenstein disagrees with Dimand and defines the three scenarios around the concave medallion as “the Annunciation, the Entry into Jerusalem, and the Raising of Lazarus” (Katzenstein 1983, 56). Also, one of the two saints accompanying Virgin Mary has a turban on his head, which obscures his real identity. The confusions and mysteries are mostly caused by the lack of attributes/individualization for each character depicted as well as the deficiency of coherent order. In one hand, the depictions of life of Christ illustrate the “Islam’s increasing awareness and acceptance of certain Christian themes and ideas,” while on the other hand, the evident reappropriation and adjustment of Christian figures should not be neglected (Katzenstein 1983, 65). The Islamization of Christian images implies that the artists might possess certain amount of knowledge of biblical stories but were plausibly unfamiliar with Christianity.
In addition to sacred scenarios, the canteen also contains mundane images. For example, “Around the hole is a frieze of warriors on horseback” (Dimand 1934, 17). Nonetheless, the identity of these soldiers are unclear. Some art historians argue that they are Ayyubid aristocracies playing polo game, some suggest that they are hunters, and others believe that they are armed Muslims and Crusaders fighting with each other. There are also musicians and people with drinking vessels, reinforcing the mystery of this object and obscuring its real function. In fact, the function and purpose of this canteen is still an ongoing debate among art historians. The official website of Freer and Sackler Museum claims, “The canteen may have been commissioned by a wealthy Christian, perhaps, as a special memento of his travels” (Freer|Sackler Museum, n.d.). In Katzenstein’s journal, she writes, “The impractical size and the weight of the canteen suggest that they served primarily ceremonial purposes” (Katzenstein 1983, 54). Other scholars such as Atil analyze how the canteen could be utilized by pilgrims in detail in order to demonstrate its practical function. Therefore, it is difficult to draw a defined conclusion on whether the canteen was created for secular or ceremonial purpose.
Albeit these hypotheses, mysteries, and confusions, the canteen is essential for modern generation to decipher the culture, identity, and human migration during the Middle Age. While appreciating the extremely fine craftsmanship, it is equally important to recognize this canteen as an epitome of the multicultural society. In other words, no culture/cultural identity is so-called independent or pure — they meld, influence, and define each other through interactions such as human migration. Meanwhile, the canteen can serve as a reminder of the intimate but often neglected connection between Christians and Muslims generated by human migration. Eventually, this canteen, along with all the mysteries around it, proves that whether human migration takes place naturally or compulsively, it unarguably encourages cultural fluidity, enriches the development of our civilization, and leads to the creation of fascinating and intricate artworks.
— Emmie Poth-Nebel and Junru Zhou