Rectangular stucco and glass window with geometric ornamentation composed of regularly placed eight- and sixteen-pointed stars. The stars form an interlaced ornamental grid. The main field is framed by a lambrequin arch ending in a knot at its apex. The arch is supported by two narrow columns. The spandrels above the arch are filled with continuous floral ornament composed of stylized split palmettes. The columns, the arch, and the spandrels are – unlike the star pattern – not perforated and therefore not backed with coloured glass.

The window is preserved in its original wooden frame. On its back, the frame is reinforced by two wooden struts running diagonally across the top corners; the struts are fixed with nails. The front of the latticework has probably been painted. The thin layer of plaster around the pieces of glass is stained brown. The zone around the area backed with glass is grey and less stained.

Gypsum plaster; colourless glass with a slightly greyish-greenish tint, coloured glass (two shades of green, two shades of blue, two shades of orange, yellow, purple, and two shades of red flashed glass); wood, metal, paint (?)

The window is preserved in is original frame. The front of the latticework looks painted and shows only minor losses. Where the stucco lattice is damaged and small pieces have broken off, the light-coloured plaster is revealed. During visual examination, it was not possible to determine the nature of the thin, greyish-brown coating.

This stucco and glass window corresponds iconographically to one of the standard types of shamsiyyāt widespread in the Maghreb during the Ottoman period. Interlaced stars are a recurring element in Islamic arts across time and media (see for instance Broug, 2013; Azzam, 2021, pp. 68–127). However, there are several formal characteristics, especially the purely geometric design, the complex interlace pattern, and the framing arch supported by two columns, that allow us to narrow down the origin of the window to Tunisia. This geographical classification is supported by the description and illustration of a similarly designed window by the French architect Henri Saladin (1851–1923), who in his 1908 publication Tunis et Kairouan reports on a visit to a workshop in Tunis (Saladin, 1908, p. 75), where he commissioned several stucco and glass windows for the Tunisian pavilion at the 1889 Exposition Universelle in Paris (IG_248, see also IG_92).

The MAK window finds very close parallels in two other stucco and glass windows of assumed Tunisian origin, one held at the Museum für angewandte Kunst (MAK) in Vienna (see IG_364) and the other at the Musée de Grenoble (see IG_170). Also similar are the stucco and glass windows made for the Tunisian pavilion at the 1867 Exposition Universelle of Paris (see IG_270, IG_271).

Shamsiyyāt with geometric star ornamentation from the Maghreb are represented in Orientalist paintings by European artists, although much less frequently than stucco and glass windows with figurative motifs from Egypt or Turkey. Among the few examples are an undated oil painting by the Vienna-born Orientalist painter Rudolf Ernst (1854–1932) (see IG_137) and the oil painting Après le bain (1894) by the French Orientalist painter Paul-Louis Bouchard (1853–1937) (see IG_148).

The window discussed here was made according to the traditional technique used in the manufacture of shamsiyyāt in the Maghreb up to this day (see Technique). As with the stucco and glass window of assumed Tunisian origin held at the Musée de Grenoble (IG_170) and the other shamsiyya held at the MAK – Museum für angewandte Kunst in Vienna (IG_362, IG_364, IG_366), the wooden frame of this window was reinforced by wooden struts inserted into the frame’s corners. This type of reinforcement is not observed in the technically similar stucco and glass windows from Egypt; it could therefore be a Tunisian peculiarity.

Although the shamsiyyāt in the MAK’s collection are technically identical to the window at the Musée de Grenoble, they clearly differ in terms of the quality of their design and execution. The MAK examples are rather well crafted, and their design is more sophisticated than the Grenoble window.

Windows of this type were traditionally installed in the upper parts of walls. To direct the light downwards into the room, the openings in the stucco lattice were cut out of the stucco panel at a downwards-pointing angle. The star ornamentation in the main field of this window is cut at a very sharp angle, which could indicate that the window was installed very high up in the walls of the building. However, despite the damage and the brown stains on the window’s back (see restoration), the window does not show strong evidence for weathering. We would have expected to find clear signs of this (e.g., weathering crusts, thick dust deposits) if the window had been exposed to the elements for a longer period.

Due to the lack of documentation, the exact origin of the window and the date from which it first entered a museum collection are unknown. So far, we only know that it formed part of the collection of the Orientalisches Museum in Vienna, founded in 1874 (from 1886 the k.k. Österreichisches Handels-Museum). In 1897, Arthur von Scala (1845–1909), the director of the Handels-Museum, left the museum to become the new director of the k.k. Österreichisches Museum für Kunst und Industrie (Wieninger, 2012). On his initiative, this and a few other stucco and glass windows were transferred to the k.k. Österreichisches Museum für Kunst und Industrie (today the MAK – Museum für angewandte Kunst) in 1907.