- Title
- Bottle
- Date Made
- 9th-10th century
- Medium
- Blown glass with cut decoration
- Dimensions
- 4 x 3 1/4 in. (10.2 x 8.2 cm)
- Accession Number
- M.88.129.160
- Collecting Area
- Art of the Middle East: Islamic
- Curatorial Notes
Premodern glassware represents an extraordinary transformation by fire of humble ingredients—sand, plant ash, and minerals—into delicate, jewel-like objects of everyday use. Developed sometime before 2000 BCE in the Middle East, glass technology advanced to a high degree of sophistication in antiquity thanks to Roman and Iranian craftsmen, whose greatly valued wares were exported to places as far flung as northern Europe and East Asia. Glassmaking in the first centuries of the Islamic era is marked by a continuity with these earlier traditions, as is demonstrated by this green bottle, in which the design draws upon Sasanian prototypes with facet-cut surface patterns (see M.76.174.236). Here, the decoration, consisting of five rows of shallow circles cut away at close intervals in a honeycomb pattern, was realized after the object had cooled.
2024
