Like the illumination attributed to Gentile Bellini, this brass platter is a Venetian response to Islamic art. The object is decorated with silver wire that has been fused to the brass in a technique called damascening, named after the city of Damascus. During the Renaissance, damascene brass was imported from the eastern Mediterranean to Italy, and by 1500 this Islamic technique had been adopted by craftsmen in Italy. Brass objects inlaid with intricate Arabesque designs in silver became especially popular in Venice. Some objects were close copies of Islamic models, while others, like this plate, mingle Italian and Eastern patterns.

Source: Eye of the Beholder, edited by Alan Chong et al. (Boston: ISGM and Beacon Press, 2003): 100.

Purchased in 1906 from the Galleria Sangiorgi, Rome.