DESCRIPTION: | This sculptural masterpiece of a door knocker is dominated by a lion’s head in whose jaws hangs a combination of a handle and a knocker designed as a ring embellished with a cock. Around the finely stylized mane is a Kufi inscription on a black niello ground. Niello is an alloy of silver, lead, copper, or bismuth sulfides that is ground to a powder and then melted into hollows in the object. The inscription proclaims the Muslim profession of faith: “In the name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate. I testify that there is no god but God and that Muhammad is the messenger of God. |
|---|
