LONDON.- A magnificent zinc tankard with elegant gold-decoration of royal quality – the only Safavid zinc vessel in private hands and the first to come to auction – will lead Christie's Art of the Islamic and Indian Worlds including Rugs and Carpets sale on 30 October (estimate: £1,500,000-1,800,000). Highlighting the quality of works being offered, it is a rare survival from the period of Shah Isma'il I, with most of the closest comparables in the Topkapı Palace Museum, Istanbul. The rugs and carpets are led by a 16th-century large-format 'Bird' Selendi carpet from western Anatolia, known as The Zander-Cassirer Selendi carpet (estimate: £250,000-350,000). Comprising 170 lots, the sale as a whole celebrates the great variety and richness of art made in the Islamic lands and South Asia from the 7th to 19th centuries, including paintings, manuscripts, metalwork, ceramics, calligraphy, rugs, carpets and textiles. The full pre-sale public view at Christie's headquarters in London will run from 25 to 29 October, alongside the exhibition of Exceptional Paintings from The Personal Collection of Prince & Princess Sadruddin Aga Khan from 24 to 27 October, during Christie's much anticipated Islamic and Indian Art Week.

Although the element zinc had been used in metallurgy for many centuries in the Islamic world by the time that the sale's top lot – the remarkable small tankard – was made, there is no evidence of the technology required being used in Iran before 1500. The earliest examples, in the Topkapı Palace treasury, are clearly Safavid in style, while it's not known for sure where the zinc for these vessels was refined. The material clearly attracted Shah Isma'il whose treasury contained a number of exquisitely decorated items fashioned in this 'new' material. The tankard has three registers of design, each of which are executed in a slightly different technique. In the lowest medallions the gold is inlaid flush into the ground, and is then itself carved and engraved with delicate further ornamentation. The part-medallions that form the middle row have similarly decorated gold arabesques but against a ground that is cut away and stippled to leave them in relief. In the upper band around the mouth the ground around the similarly decorated gold is mostly cut away but there is also a carved second level of scrolling flowering tendrils that interlace with the arabesques. This double level scrolling design is also a particular feature of Iranian carpet design, appearing first in Tabriz weavings of the later 15th century. This work presents the market with an extremely rare opportunity, unlikely to be repeated.

Elsewhere, the sale presents one of the few surviving examples of royal Rasulid metalwork: a rare brass candlestick made for the Yemeni Sultan al-Mujahid Saif al-Din 'Ali (r. 1322-63), which retains much of its silver and copper inlay, and was most likely made by a Mamluk craftsman (estimate: £200,000-300,000). A very similar candlestick, also dedicated to the Rasulid Sultan al-Malik al-Mujahid Sayf ad-Din 'Ali, was sold by Christie's London in October 2015, and is now in the collection of the Musée du Louvre, and currently on view at the Louvre Abu Dhabi. Originally part of the Jaipur Royal Collection, is a large and impressive cotton tent wall (Qanat) (estimate: £150,000-250,000). Though the itinerant Mughal and Rajput rulers of India remain famous for their palaces, they often spent just as much time under canvas as they did at home and so their tents were elaborate.

Among the Rugs and Carpets, exceptional craftsmanship and notable provenance is further exemplified by The Zander-Cassirer Selendi carpet, a highly important and much-cited example from a rare group of white ground, large-scale carpets displaying the 'Bird' design (estimate: £250,000-350,000). Formerly loaned to both the Detroit Museum of Fine Arts and the Museum of Islamic Art in Berlin, it was originally purchased by the German engineer, entrepreneur and art collector, Alfred Cassirer (1875-1932) from the collection of Johannes Kurt Zander (1860-1926) who was closely involved in the Anatolian Rail Company. Very few large format 'Bird' carpets on the scale of the present carpet have survived (15ft.2in. x 7ft.1in./ 465cm. x 217cm.), making this an unmissable opportunity.

Equally impressive is a magnificent and extremely well-preserved early 17th-century Safavid Isfahan gallery carpet, formerly part of a Japanese museum collection, that embodies the weaving accomplishments of the Safavid court under Shah Abbas (estimate: £60,000-80,000). A recently discovered 'Bird' asmalyk, which is in very good condition, showcases the depth and quality of colours, the finesse of the wool and the supple 'handle', which are among the defining characteristics that give the relatively small group of known examples such a high reputation, making them so sought after by specialist collectors of Turkmen weaving (estimate: £25,000-35,000).