grab the dog

The Cloisters Collection, 2016 www.metmuseum.org

This sleek guy is a clever bit of 15th or 16th century Spanish ironwork.  He's a door handle.  The streamlined, sinuous curlicue of his tail speaks to me of Moorish influence. Though the Moors fell from power in Spain in the late 15th century, their centuries of presence would have made their graceful patterns very much a part of the area's common visual language.