Duck Candlestick
Unknown · Second half of the twelfth century (1150-1200)
A broad truncated cone of hammered brass rises to a narrow neck and a wide drip pan, and over its whole surface rows of ducks strut in relief. The birds were pushed out from the inside with a hammer, a technique called repoussé, then chased and picked out with inlays of silver, copper and a black paste that makes the bright metal gleam by contrast. Look for the band of Arabic script running around the body. It is not a name or a date but a chain of good wishes for the owner: well-being, happiness, abundance, health, care, honour and gratitude.
Metalworkers in Khorasan, in eastern Iran, made candlesticks of this shape in the second half of the twelfth century, and this one, with its dense flocks of repoussé ducks, is among the most ambitious to survive. Water birds were symbols of plenty and good fortune, which suits the blessings written above them. The inscription was deciphered by the scholar Melikian-Chirvani in nineteen seventy-one. The candlestick came to the Louvre by bequest in nineteen hundred and nine. Notice where black inlay still fills the letters while the silver has worn away.
Did You Know? The Arabic band around the body is a list of blessings for whoever owned the lamp, not a signature or a date.
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