The centrepiece of the Museo Municipal de Tavira collection is to be loaned to the Louvre Museum in Paris in an exhibition that runs from from October 17, 2014 to January 19, 2015.
The famous "Vase de Tavira", a piece created in the late eleventh century, is one of the most iconic objects of the Islamic period from the land that became Portugal and shows figures gathered at an Islamic wedding ceremony.
"The small set of human figures includes a knight, a soldier with a crossbow, a musician, a woman and doves, a turtle, a horse, a camel, a goat, and sheep and cattle," according to a thrilled Tavira council spokesman.
The exhibition where the "Vase de Tavira" will be displayed is called "Medieval Morocco - An Empire from Africa to Spain" and is being run by the Louvre Museum and the National Foundation for the Museums of Morocco and integrates a diverse set of objects of which the Vase of Tavira will be one of the most important.
Description:
Vessel made from red clay.
The sides, sloping slightly outwards, become thicker at the top to form an invisible channel through which water could pass after having been poured into a kind of funnel-neck which stands out clearly from the overall piece.
The water would run through the channel and then be poured into the interior of the vase through eight of the 14 figurines standing around its edge.
Two armed and mounted knights, accompanied by a dismounted archer, stand on either side of a woman also on horseback.
Then come two musicians, who would have been part of a quartet, now incomplete.
This set of human figures was followed by five animals, four of which remain: a bovine, a camel, a deer or gazelle, another camel and a lion. A flock of doves is perched on the funnel-neck.
This is an extraordinary piece of popular art probably representing the ceremonial abduction that took place before a wedding ceremony, in which the animals are intended to be an allegory of good fortune for the couple.
The water coming from the eight gargoyles would be for a shrub planted in the vase, possibly basil as this plant was associated with the cult of love in Iberian and Mediterranean traditions.
The vase was discovered during archaeological excavations under the direction of Maria and Manuel Maia, near the Porta de D. Manuel in Tavira.
For exhibition details, see:
