- Title
- Bottle
- Date Made
- late 7th-early 9th century
- Medium
- Glass, free-blown, marvered and combed
- Dimensions
- Height: 5 3/4 in. (14.61 cm); Diameter.: 3 in. (7.62 cm)
- Accession Number
- M.45.3.90
- Collecting Area
- Art of the Middle East: Islamic
- Curatorial Notes
Glassmaking, one of many crafts that flourished in the lands that would form the early Islamic empire in the mid-seventh through the eighth century, persisted under the new faith and leadership. Even beyond this transitional period, some glass techniques continued to be practiced, as seen in this striking marvered and combed bottle. In this pair of techniques, which date to the Late Antique era, colored glass threads are rolled into the glass body with a marvering tool, then combed or dragged into the desired design while the blown vessel is still hot and in a malleable state. Marvered and combed glass was especially popular in eleventh- to fourteenth-century Egypt and Syria (see M.2002.1.11), but this bottle seems to belong to an earlier period based on the multicolored glass threads and the small scale of the wavelike design.
2024
