Girdle

Description The girdle is made of a flexible, interlace mesh and has eleven movable retainers with large rhombic attachments, each with two tear-shaped pendants, and twelve retainers with smaller rhombic attachments, each with one pendant. All attachments were cast. Small rings and rosettes frame the large rhombic elements, and three-ring motif with burling rosettes accompany the smaller ones at their top and bottom. The clasps are also decorated with a large rhombic elements. A wire shaped in a figure-eight with a rosette is used as a closing element. On the front of the clasps is an Arabic stamp with the name of the ruler and a date: al-Mahdi 1170. The similarity to stamps of al-Mahdi al-"Abbas makes it likely that the pendants were produced under his reign from AH 1161 to 1189 (AD 1748-1775). An engraved inscription on the back of the clasp names the silversmith: Musa "Iraqi. For another object by Musa "Iraqi, see Walters 57.2321.

Provenance Mr. Benjamin Zucker [Zucker Family Trust] and Mr. Derek Content, New York and London, by purchase; Walters Art Museum, 2010, by gift.

Inscriptions Stamp (Arabic) al-Mahdi 1170 Engraving (Hebrew) Musa Iraqi

Credit Joint gift to the Walters Art Museum, Baltimore, and the Israel Museum, Jerusalem, by Mr. Benjamin Zucker and Mr. Derek Content in honor of Mrs. Barbara Zucker and Mrs. Amanda Content, 2010