Word: inlaid
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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SOON after early-morning prayers at Jerusalem's Al Aqsa mosque one day last week, flames burst from the ceiling beneath its famed silver dome. For three hours, the fire raged, destroying part of the roof and an 800-year-old pulpit of exquisitely carved cedarwood and inlaid ivory, a gift from the Islamic hero Saladin (1137-1193). Before Israeli and Arab firemen could extinguish the flames or anyone could investigate the fire, the entire Middle East was echoing with outraged Moslem demands for jihad-holy...
...almost unparalleled variety of stone religious statuettes, ranging from a voluptuous pair of seminude 1st century dryads to a masterly 5th century lion's head from Mathura. There were ferocious bronze twelve-armed Kashmirian deities, smiling eastern Indian Krishnas and serene Nepalese Buddhas, to say nothing of inlaid daggers and textiles woven with iridescent beetle wings. Yet to many scholars, the most delightful items were the exquisite 16th-to-19th century manuscript paintings from the Rajput and Mogul civilizations of western and central India. These, in more than 70 sprightly miniatures, detailed stories of the gods as well...
...dominated by luxury-loving Bourbon France, and its real mirror was its applied arts. Cabinetmakers produced carved and inlaid furniture, which they were entitled to sign, like artists. Porcelain factories turned out incense burners shaped like snails or elephants, tulip stands decorated with genre scenes. Yet, while artisans were elevated to the status of artists, painters often became as subservient as craftsmen. The vast majority of oils, watercolors and drawings made by Fragonard, Boucher, Watteau and Nattier to decorate boudoirs and gaming rooms were skillful but skin-deep pictures of pretty ladies, handsome gallants and idyllic landscapes...
...front of the city hall of Nablus there is a large mob. It turns out that everybody wants to see the mayor. As I enter the mayor's office another stereotype vanishes. People in Israel had told me about hand-carved mahogany chairs and tables inlaid with mother-of-pearl. On the contrary, the office is simple, nearly austere. Mayor Hamdi Kan'an is seated in front of a desk with his coat on; the room is under-heated on this unusually cold winter day. In a corner there is one electric heater. Mr. Kan'an tells me that...
Some of the other more interesting pieces include: a pleasantly simple cauldron of the eighth century B.C. that combines utility and decoration in smooth, clean lines, a magnificent portrait head of Alexander the Great, a seventeenth century jade ewer inlaid with gold and set with rubies and emeralds, intricate and enormous carpets, miniaturist painting and goldware of the second millennium...