Side of a clear glass vessel with a squat globular body with a high, flaring neck nearly as tall as its body. A flat handle attached at the center of the body has thumb piece  at the rim of the neck. Decorated with zigzag lines and rows of crescents around the neck.
AKM650, Cup with Handle

© The Aga Khan Museum

Clear glass vessel with a squat globular body with a high, flaring neck nearly as tall as its body.  Direct view of the flat handle and thumb piece visible at the rim of the neck. Decorated with zigzag lines and rows of crescents around the neck
AKM650, Cup with Handle, Side

© The Aga Khan Museum

Interior view of  a clear glass vessel with a squat globular body with a high, flaring neck. Thumb piece visible at the rim of the neck. Decorated with zigzag lines and rows of crescents around the neck.
AKM650, Cup with Handle, Interior

© The Aga Khan Museum

Bottom of Clear glass vessel with a squat globular body and base of handle.
AKM650, Cup with Handle, Bottom

© The Aga Khan Museum

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On Display
Cup with Handle
  • Accession Number:AKM650
  • Place:Iran, Northeastern Region
  • Dimensions:11 cm x 12.2 cm
  • Date:10th — 11th Century
  • Materials and Technique:glass, colourless, matte white weathering; blown, wheel-cut, applied, tooled, worked on the pontil
  • With its squat globular body on a disk-like base, a high, flaring neck nearly as tall as its body, this object shares key features with a small group of vessels. Such vessels have been called drinking cups or pouring jars because their shape differs from typical Islamic ewers or pitchers with globular bodies and cylindrical necks. Some related examples are plain or have moulded decoration, while others—like this piece—have wheel-cut designs in a linear style. All seem to have been produced in the Iranian region. Apart from the typical grayish colorless glass and the decoration a strong argument for an Iranian origin is the fact that two vessels of this shape have been excavated from a tomb in Inner Mongolia with finds dated to 1018.[1]

Further Reading

 

The flat handle attached to the centre of this object’s body has been pulled to the rim of its neck, where a thumb-piece was attached. This thumb-piece is not decorative; it allows the object to be held more easily when it contains a liquid. However, there is no definitive proof that such vessels were used as drinking cups. A related cup in the David Collection in Copenhagen has been called a lamp, which may be another possible use.[2] A vessel closely related in shape in the Corning Museum of Glass was thought to have been used as a measuring cup made in Fatimid Egypt and dated from the 10th to 11th centuries.[3] Both the provenance and the function of this object must be questioned.

The decoration of this vessel (with its main frieze of zigzag lines on the body in which the resulting triangles are filled with a plant-like design and two rows of crescents around the neck, all between single or double lines) points to glass artisans who used related standard ornaments for this group. The execution in a linear style must have been done rapidly and thus departs from some of the more sophisticated wheel-cut vessels in the Aga Khan Museum Collection (see AKM657). The subject of the rows of crescents around the neck has an exact counterpart on a jug excavated in Nishapur in northeastern Iran. It has been dated to the 10th century and is also of colourless glass.[4] Further examples of this decoration have survived. Not only the vessel’s colourless glass but also the wheel-cut decoration typical for objects from the Nishapur region suggests that it is likely that it comes from the northeastern area of Iran.

Specific dates for products of glass from Islamic lands are rarely known. Glass objects are rarely dated according to the reigns of ruling caliphs or other conventional criteria. Fortunately, the discovery of numerous glass vessels buried in China in treasuries or tombs can help date a number of objects. For example, Islamic glass vessels buried in the tomb of Princess Chenguo of the Liao Dynasty (907­–1125) and her husband in Naiman, Inner Mongolia must have been made in the 10th century or the beginning of the 11th century at the very latest. Such finds demonstrate that glass vessels with patterns typical for the Islamic regions were prized in China, where glass of this quality was not made at that time.

The glass objects traded to China were of different qualities, and many of them belong to the typical glass types produced for Islamic societies. For this reason, one cannot call such vessels “export glass” produced especially for the Chinese market. Many details on the trade as well as the routes are still unknown, but it is certain that the Silk Roads played an important part in the history of the distribution of glass from Islamic lands.

 

— Jens Kröger


Notes
[1] Carboni, 148–49, no. 36b.
[2] Von Folsach, 215, no. 330.  
[3] Barrucand, 1998, 199 no. 187. Seipel 1998­, 205–207 no. 217. Whitehouse, 100–101, no. 156.
[4] Kröger, 175, no. 228.


References
Barrucand, Marianne, Trésors fatimides du Caire. Ghent: Snoeck-Ducaju & Zoon, and Paris: Institut du Monde Arabe, 1998. ISBN: 9782843060083
Carboni, Stefano. Glass from Islamic Lands. The Al-Sabah Collection. Kuwait National Museum. New York: Thames and Hudson, 2001. ISBN: 9780500976067
Folsach, Kjeld von. Art from the World of Islam in The David Collection. Copenhagen: F. Hendriksens Eftf, 2001. ISBN: 9788788464214
Kröger, Jens. Nishapur. Glass of the Early Islamic Period. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1995. ISBN: 9780300192827 
Seipel, Wilfried. Schätze der Kalifen. Islamische Kunst zur Fatimidenzeit. Wien: Künstlerhaus, 16. November 1998 bis 21. Februar 1999. Wien: Kunsthistorisches Museum, 1998, and Milano: Skira editore, 1998. ISBN: 9788881184675 
Whitehouse, David. Islamic Glass in The Corning Museum of Glass, Vol. I. Corning, NY: The  Corning Museum of Glass, 2010. ISBN: 9781555953553

 

Note: This online resource is reviewed and updated on an ongoing basis. We are committed to improving this information and will revise and update knowledge about this object as it becomes available.

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