Handmade Middle Eastern Serving Tray - Brass, Copper, and Silver

Trying to find out as much as I can about this piece. It is 23 1/4 inches in diameter. Any info or insights will be appreciated. Thank you!

 

Hi Tommy!

Welcome to Antiquers........

If you are having trouble with your photos.......

If they are on your phone, email them to yourself choosing Medium.

Then upload them here and choose Full Image.

 

Boy have we been seeing a lot of these lately....

 

Thanks for the help with the pictures! Any thoughts on the platter? I've done quite a bit of searching and have seen a wide price margin, but not a lot of information on how to tell if I have something special or not.

 

yours is nice...very nice......and i like the heavy silver treatment.....but it doesn't hold a candle to this recent one we've seen..........
Read the whole thread and see if you can take away some good info to get an idea of yours.....

https://www.antiquers.com/threads/large-30-middle-eastern-arabic-tinned-copper-tray-signed.36406/

 

The multi-metal technique produces “Cairoware.”

 

The technique is called koftgari or damascene which is an overlay.

 

Well of course, silly, it is a tray not a candleholder! : x )

 

No one ever posted an eBay link to the other one, and that one had terrible pics in the thread. Could I ask again for eBay link, or eBay number?

 

Welcome to Antiquers, @Tommy Botham -- There are many Persian trays sold through eBay recently, of many different designs and types. You could search Sold listings there to see recent sales if that interests you.

 

Also agree, Cairoware. Search of this term should bring up similar.

 

This is not damascening by any stretch of imagination. Damascening is a kind of inlaying. This is overlaid with silver and has been made in Egypt, in the style of something that used to be made centuries ago. called Mamluk ware. Hence they are called Mamluke revival pieces. From the early part of the 20th century, there are beautiful, densely and intricately worked examples, very finely rendered, delightful if you can find them. I gifted one to a friend's son on his wedding which had passages from the Koran exquisitely worked on it in silver. The original Mamlukware can only be found in Museums now.

 

I guess you didn't know that Damascene is mostly overlaid. It is misidentified as inlay in many cases by people who never actually looked at the process.

 

Oppi Untracht"s "Metal Techniques for Craftsmen" is my go-to for sorting out metalworking terms. He defines damascene as: "A metal-decorating process that involves the application of one metal on another by encrustation [overlay] or inlay".

He defines kuftgari as: "A form of damascene originating in India and consisting of the inlay of silver or gold wire into steel".

Here is a good discussion of the confusion generated by the use of the term damascene:
https://www.tf.uni-kiel.de/matwis/amat/iss/kap_b/advanced/tb_3_2.html

Nice tray, by the way.

 

These "Mamluk Revival" pieces were made not only in Kairo, but in other places too, as Damascus or Jerusalem. Here is a collection with some nice examples: https://www.damascusmetalwork.org/

 

I don’t worry much about the semantics, if I call it “mixed metals” I don’t get much static.