AN OTTOMAN JADE AND JEWEL-SET GILT SILVER BELT BUCKLE, TURKEY, 17TH CENTURY

A slightly curved gilt silver belt, with a central aperture and hidden sliding hinge, four thin stays on underside to fasten belt, the front worked in repoussé with foliate scrolls, set with encrusted jade plaques inlaid with gold and colorful stones, bordered by further stones set into shallow bud-shaped settings.
25 by 11 cm.

PROVENANCE
Private collection, Germany

CATALOGUE NOTE
This magnificent belt buckle belongs to a very small group of Ottoman buckles decorated in such an extravagant manner which are known to exist. One is in the Topkapi Saray Collection and another in the Benaki Museum (Ballian 1992, p.96-97, no.53). Another similar example, dated to the sixteenth century, now in the Museum für Kunsthandwerk, Frankfurt, inv. no. 14320, displays a similar pattern of arrangement, with inset jade plaques and colourful gemstones on a repoussé ground.

The colourful stones bordering each plaque of the buckle were each set into bud-shaped clasps using a technique known as mihlama (R. Hasson, Later Islamic Jewellery, L.A. Mayer Memorial Institute for Islamic Art, Jerusalem 1987, p.11, no. 3). The Ottoman tradition of setting jade and gemstones into metal objects intended for everyday use to embellish them can be seen on a number of different objects including small boxes, book covers, weapons (see following lot).