Under the somewhat generic term "Oriental" we class those numerous bronzes and other art treasures which come to us from the East and the Far East. Early in the mediæval days Eastern influence dominated the craftsmen of Europe, and many of those who took part in the Crusades, and later in adventurous journeys into the northern part of Africa, bordering upon the Great Sea, brought back to their Western homes curios which were undoubtedly Oriental in their design.
Countries of Origin.
A collection of copper and brass to be at all representative must be varied and cosmopolitan in selection. Such a collection should include vessels of utility and ornamental objects which show the aims of the artist who designed them. Incidentally, too, such objects exhibit the sameness of purpose existing in many lands; although the methods of domestic procedure and the ways of living vary until their common origin is scarcely recognizable. In such a collection of domestic curios the influence of Saracenic art is seen in the ewers and basins and similar vessels which come from the lands where the wild Arab tribes lived for centuries in an almost barbarous state on the edge of the Syrian desert. Many of these quaint hammered copper vessels are of barbaric beauty, such as, for instance, the coffee-pot shown in Fig. 64 and the basin in Fig. 65.
There are some pleasing customs savouring of patriarchal days still practised by Arab races. Such, for instance, when the sheik has finished his morning meal he throws a stone into his brass or copper coffee-pot as a sign to his followers to strike camp.
"Awake, for morning, in the bowl of night,
Has flung the stone which puts the stars to flight,
And, ho! the hunter of the East has caught the Sultan's turritt in a noose of light."
FIG. 64.—COFFEE-POT OF HAMMERED COPPER FROM SYRIA.