Coloured lithograph in Julius Franz, Die Baukunst des Islam, 1887, p. 60 (and in the second edition 1896, p. 68). The plate shows a stucco and glass window with a vase in a medallion. A band with blue circles (perforations) surrounds the medallion, as well as four green hexafoils arranged below and above the medallion. Red and blue fan-shaped ornaments decorate the corners.
Coloured lithograph.
The measurements of this are 1.40 by 0.70 m. Franz gives no further information about the provenance of the window, but owing to a recently discovered photograph in the estate of Franz Schmoranz (IG_419), it is now known that the window was part of the collection of the Museum of Islamic Art in Cairo when at its first location in the Al-Hakim Mosque. The photograph shows the window among other pieces, some of which are still in the collection today.
The lithograph, made by the publishing house Werner & Winter in Frankfurt a. M., shows an unusual colouring: the perforated background to the medallion is commonly covered with colourless glass (see for example IG_169), and not with red glass as in the plate. It is not possible to determine whether the original window actually had red glass behind the perforations, or whether this is a modification within the print, as the photograph is in black and white.
The large yellow parts are also unusual, but as comparison with the photograph shows, the corresponding openings in the original window are not quite as large.
The photograph by Schmoranz displays a second very similar stucco and glass window, also with a medallion with a vase and a similar curling border.
Franz, J. (1887). Die Baukunst des Islam. Handbuch der Architektur II, 3, 2 (2nd ed. 1896). Darmstadt: Arnold Bergsträsser.
