# Basin with Figural Imagery > Unidentified metalworking workshop, Ilkhanid Iran - early 14th century (ca. 1300-1325) > Canonical HTML: https://iconotheca.com/artworks/unidentified-ilkhanid-court-metalworker-early-14th-century/basin-figural-imagery-moore-met/ > Published by Servola Systems GmbH. Last verified: 2026-09-01 ## Tombstone - **Artist:** Unidentified metalworking workshop, Ilkhanid Iran - **Date:** early 14th century (ca. 1300-1325) - **Medium:** Brass; raised, engraved, and inlaid with silver and gold - **Dimensions:** H. 5 1/8 in. (13 cm); Diam. 20 1/2 in. (51.1 cm) - **Object type:** Islamic metalwork - **Period:** Ilkhanid Iran, early fourteenth century - **Current location:** The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Islamic Art department, on view in Gallery 455 at The Met Fifth Avenue - **Attribution:** accepted ## Summary A scalloped brass basin, hammered up from a single blank and inlaid over its whole interior in silver and gold with musicians, courtiers, enthroned figures, polo players, and addorsed griffins - the standard cast of Ilkhanid courtly imagery, made for a patron the object itself never names. No maker's name survives, and no owner is documented between its manufacture in early fourteenth-century Iran and its appearance in the New York collection of Edward C. Moore, the silversmith who ran Tiffany and Co.'s design studio for more than two decades.Moore left the basin, and roughly four hundred other objects from the Islamic world, to the Metropolitan Museum of Art on his death in 1891 - still the largest single body of Islamic-world material the Museum has ever received in one gift. His wider collecting, drawn from Greece and Rome, Asia, Europe and the Islamic world alike, is documented to have directly shaped the silver Tiffany produced under his direction in the 1870s and 1880s. Nothing in the sources consulted ties this particular basin to any specific Tiffany design; the connection that is documented runs at the level of the collection as a whole, not this one object.The piece has been in print continuously since 1930 and has not moved between departments, countries, or centuries in that time - a stability that is itself worth recording, since a Metropolitan sibling from the same 1891 bequest, catalogued as a candlestick, has had its own country and date revised by the Museum within the last decade. ## Provenance Every link carries a grade. `documented` means a cited source supports it, `disputed` means the identification is argued but not established, `unknown` means we have no owner for that span and have not bridged it. - **early 14th century** Unrecorded `[documented]` (origin) Made in Ilkhanid Iran, early fourteenth century, for an unrecorded patron. No inscription names a commissioner or owner. - **-by 1891** Unknown `[unknown]` (gap) No owner, dealer, or country of export is documented between the basin's manufacture and its presence in Edward C. Moore's New York collection by the time of his death in 1891. General accounts of Moore's collecting describe purchases through auctions in Paris and London, world's fairs, and dealers including Siegfried Bing and Samuel P. Avery, but none of the sources consulted names this basin specifically among such transactions. - **-1891** Edward C. Moore, New York `[documented]` (collection) Held by Moore, a silversmith and Tiffany and Co.'s chief silver designer from 1868 until his death, until his death on August 2, 1891. - **1891-present** Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York `[documented]` (bequest) Bequeathed to the Museum on Moore's death as part of a gift of more than two thousand objects, including approximately four hundred from the Islamic world - the largest single body of Islamic-world material the Museum has ever received in one gift. Accessioned as 91.1.521, Edward C. Moore Collection. ## Open questions - How and when did Edward C. Moore acquire this specific basin? No purchase record, dealer, or auction has been found for this object individually. - By what route did the basin leave Iran and reach New York by 1891 at the latest? Nothing documents its movement between manufacture and Moore's ownership. - Has this basin's original gold and silver inlay survived largely intact, or has most of it been lost, as the Metropolitan's own Heilbrunn Timeline essay states has happened to comparable Ilkhanid metalwork generally while citing this object's accession number? The Museum's own overview description of the piece does not address the question directly. - Was this basin made in Tabriz, the Ilkhanid capital the Museum proposes as the destination for metalworkers from Mosul and Shiraz, or elsewhere in Ilkhanid territory? No inscription or record ties the object to a specific city. - What did Moore pay for the basin, and through which dealer, auction house, or private sale, if any? No price or acquisition record for this object has been located. ## Sources - [1] Metropolitan Museum of Art, online collection catalogue for 'Basin with Figural Imagery,' object number 444523 (Overview, Catalogue Entry by Francesca Leoni, Provenance, Exhibition History, and References tabs, all consulted). - [2] Metropolitan Museum of Art, Open Access Collection API record for object 444523. - [3] Ekhtiar, Maryam, Priscilla P. Soucek, Sheila R. Canby, and Navina Haidar, eds. Masterpieces from the Department of Islamic Art in The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2011, no. 87, pp. 132-133, catalogue entry by Francesca Leoni. Consulted via the Museum's own online reproduction of the entry (source 1); flagged for confirmation against the printed volume. - [4] Carboni, Stefano, and Qamar Adamjee. 'Courtly Art of the Ilkhanids.' Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, October 2003. - [5] Metropolitan Museum of Art, exhibition page, 'Collecting Inspiration: Edward C. Moore at Tiffany and Co.' - [6] Metropolitan Museum of Art, press release, 'The Met to Present Exhibition of Edward C. Moore's Collection of Decorative Arts,' November 29, 2023. - [7] The Magazine Antiques, 'Cosmopolitan Craftsman' (Edward C. Moore, Tiffany and Co.). - [8] Lindsey, Rebecca. 'Displaying Islamic Art at the Metropolitan: A Retrospective Look.' The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Perspectives, February 2, 2012. - [9] Wikipedia, 'Edward C. Moore (silversmith).' Tertiary source; flagged for replacement with a scholarly biography, e.g. the 2024 exhibition catalogue Collecting Inspiration: Edward C. Moore at Tiffany and Co. - [10] Metropolitan Museum of Art, online collection record for 'Basin with Zodiac Signs and Royal Titles,' object 444553, accession 91.1.553. - [11] Metropolitan Museum of Art, online collection record for 'Ablutions Basin of Yemeni Sultan al-Mujahid Sayf al-Din 'Ali,' object 444589, accession 91.1.589. - [12] Metropolitan Museum of Art, Open Access Collection API records for objects 444553 and 444589. --- Images on this record are public domain or CC0 and are hosted by us. No image on this site is generated or simulated. If you quote this record, quote the provenance grades with it.