Although the name of the artist who made this sculpture is unknown, we do know that this intricately carved incense burner was made in Iran during the Muslim Seljuk dynasty, which lasted from 1040 to 1194.
There are two categories of art in Islamic art: religious and secular. Religious refers to art that is used as part of worship in a mosque, and secular describes anything that is used outside of a religious setting. Usually a religious (Islamic) work of art refrains from using any kind of figurative representation, meaning there are no depictions of humans or animals. Even when figural representation is included in Islamic art, there is little interest in rendering the figures in a realistic way, focusing instead on the ornamental quality.
In Islamic works of art, there are three components of decoration: vegetal patterns (usually leaves, trees, and vines), geometric designs, and script (usually featuring scripture from the Koran). The words are formed into decorative calligraphy. Sometimes the words are no longer legible, but translated into pure decoration that interlaces with the curving lines of plant leaves and repeating geometric forms. An incense burner such as this would be considered a luxury item belonging to a palatial home.
Luxury artworks, like this sculpture, highlighted and expressed the grace and pleasure in everyday life. The head of this hinged lion/feline-shaped burner opens as a receptacle to contain incense. The carving allows the smoke of the incense to release its fragrance into the atmosphere, thus making this bronze piece decorative and functional. The decoration is zoomorphic, which means the artist made it to look like an animal figure. In this case, the animal is feline, popular during the Seljuk period; judging by the large size, it is probably a lion— historically a symbol of Iranian royalty, nobility, and power. This animal shape is stylized (non-naturalistic) with prominent features, such as large empty eyes, a disproportionate head, and a flat, angular nose ending in a heart-shaped snout. The carving on the sculpture consists of a lattice design with repeated geometric patterns and vegetal scrolls that could be interpreted as stylized script. These decorative elements add grandeur to this ancient and interesting artifact.
Metalworking dates back thousands of years in ancient Iran to the sophisticated pre-Islamic, Zoroastrian empires of the Achamaenid (500–330 BC), Parthian (247 BC–224 AD) and most prominently, the Sassanian periods (224–651 AD). These great empires stretched from the borders of Rome to the far Eastern world of China, across the Steppes of Central Asia to the borders of Egypt and the Arabian Peninsula. With the weakening of the Sassanian Empire, the Arab invasion of Iran paved way for the spread of Islam in that part of the world. However, the art and architecture of the earlier empires continued to influence Arab rule in their newly conquered land.
By 1055, the Seljuks, a Turkic dynasty of Central Asian origins, established themselves as the new protectors of the Abbasid Caliphate (encompassing all of Iran, Iraq and much of Anatolia). Under the Seljuk Sultanate, Iran enjoyed a period of material and cultural prosperity. Beginning in the second half of the 12th century, the art of inlaying bronze or brass objects with precious metals such as copper, silver, and gold became prominent in the eastern Iranian province of Khorasan. Such objects were often decorated with Arabic inscriptions written in the "animated" script, developed during this period, in which the letters were transformed into human and animal figures.
