This 12th-century incense burner is incised with calligraphy that identifies its maker and first owner.

ECONOMIST: Islamic galleries at the Met

But Lycett crowns his design with a majestic domed cover whose pierced and ramified lily-pad repeat and overall shape closely reproduce the shape and ornament of a Turkish incense burner that had been illustrated in a French treatise on ceramic history published in 1873.

WSJ: Masterpiece: Gilded Abundance, Elegantly Restrained