Gyroscopic incense burner
Type:
Incense burners
Date:
Fourteenth–fifteenth centuries
Location or Findspot (Modern-Day Country):
Syria
Dimensions:
Diam. 11 cm
Description:
This spherical brass incense burner inlaid with silver was made in Syria in the fourteenth or fifteenth century. An internal gimbal or gyroscope kept the burning incense right-side up when the sphere was rolled across a carpet or table, or when it was suspended and swung. The earliest incense burners with this form date to the Tang dynasty in China (618–907 CE); textual references to incense spheres in the Islamicate world begin in the eleventh century. This one was in the collection of the Florentine banker and art collector Cosimo de' Medici, where it appeared in a 1553 inventory as one of his "profumieri damasceni" (perfume vessels from Damascus).
Relevant Textbook Chapter(s):
10
Repository and Online Resources:
• The incense burner is in the Musei Nazionale del Bargello, Florence (inv. 299 Bronzi).
Image Credits:
Linda Safran
