Aquamanile

This object is also a rare example of an Islamic automaton, as the (now lost) harness and bridle were movable, as well as the tail, and the bell wrapped around its neck would have rung when poured.

However, some suggest that it is a depiction of the young mythological king Fereydun and represents his slow ascent to kingship from his humble beginnings as a cattle breeder.

[6] The Byzantine Empire's cultural connections with Sassanid Persia and the Abbasid caliphate, never peaceful in the political sphere, nevertheless brought the aquamanile into the Christian Mediterranean world.

Ewers and basins were needed in Christian liturgy for the ritual of the lavabo, in which the officiating priest washes his hands before vesting, again before the consecration of the Eucharist and after mass.

Church records inventory aquamaniles in silver or gilt copper, but the great majority of surviving examples are in base metals, which were not worth melting down.

As well as the altar, aquamaniles were used at the tables of the great, where extravagant designs of symbolic or fantastical beasts – lions were especially popular – were developed in purely secular iconography.

Metropolitan Museum) in the form of Aristotle on hands and knees, being ridden by Phyllis, bore several moral lessons, with ribald undertones; such an aquamanile was distinctly secular in nature.

Aquamanile in the Form of a Lion
An 11–12th century Islamic aquamanile from Iran , later used in liturgy by Medieval Spanish Christians
Bronze aquamanile in the form of a mounted knight, second half of the 13th century, Lower Saxony
Aquamanile in the form of a Griffon , currently at the Kunsthistoriches Museum .