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Collections

Lamp10th-11th century

Not on view
Small ancient blown-glass vessel with milky, weathered surface, wide flaring mouth, bulbous body, and four applied teal glass loop-and-disk handles
Blown glass vessel with flared rim and rounded body, milky-translucent with visible crack repairs, decorated with four applied teal-green glass handles and drop-shaped knobs around the midsection, raised on a small foot.
Ancient blown glass vessel with flared rim and globular body, iridescent milky white surface with visible crack repairs; four applied teal-green glass handles and teardrop-shaped decorative blobs around the shoulder, raised foot ring.
Title
Lamp
Place Made
possibly Iran
Date Made
10th-11th century
Medium
Glass, free-blown, applied decoration
Dimensions
3 1/2 x 3 3/4 in. (9 x 9.5 cm)
Credit Line
Gift of Varya and Hans Cohn
Accession Number
M.88.129.181
Classification
Glass
Collecting Area
Art of the Middle East: Islamic
Curatorial Notes

Lighting is an essential requirement of daily life in all times and places. In the early and medieval Islamic periods, glass lamps were used to illuminate small private spaces or, if grouped together, a larger public space such as a mosque. Probably intended for personal use, this lamp, with its bulbous body and flaring neck, has a distinctive shape that continued in later Islamic times and was especially popular for so-called mosque lamps from fourteenth-century Egypt, where they were enlarged and embellished with gilding and enameling (see 50.28.4).

Selected Bibliography

  • Lo Terrenal y lo Divino: Arte Islámico siglos VII al XIX Colección del Museo de Arte del Condado de Los Ángeles. Santiago: Centro Cultural La Moneda, 2015.

  • Komaroff, Linda. Beauty and Identity: Islamic Art from the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 2016.