Many portable Islamic objects, including this marble water vessel, often have led long and varied lives. Jars of this type were well known in premodern Egypt and may have been originally used to store water in a religious institution. We know that this example eventually traveled to the United States, where it was exhibited at the Egyptian pavilion of the Centennial International Exhibition of 1876 in Philadelphia. The jar remained in the country at the close of the fair and was eventually sold at auction in the 1970s and then purchased as a gift for the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.