Lamp10th-11th century

Not on view

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: Saldern, Axel von. Glass 500 B.C. to A.D. 1900: The Hans Cohn Collection. Mainz: Philipp von Zabern, 1980.
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.

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