Middle East, ca. 700 to 1000 CE. This is a blown glass vessel with a rolled rim, an applied and tooled horizontal coil on its shoulder, a small foot, and decorated with four glass discs. The discs are decorated with a technique known as mold pressing, though their designs have worn and are open to interpretation. A similar but more highly decorated piece in the Metropolitan Museum of Art has been identified as a measuring cup for a qist (full measure). Glassmakers in the Levant during the early first century BCE invented the technique of blowing glass through a hollow tube to inflate it, which made glass much easier to shape into everyday wares. Within a century, glass had replaced pottery for most everyday use throughout the Mediterranean and Middle East. Islamic glass makers inherited many techniques from the Byzantines and Sassanians, including the decorative application of molten glass, as on this piece. Size: 2 1/2" tall, 2 1/4" diameter at widest point, 1 1/2" diameter at rim.

Provenance: Ex-private New York, New York collection; ex-private Wagner collection, Cape Cod, MA, acquired in 1960's

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#109039

Intact with patina and no chips or cracks. Some wearing on the discs.