.jpg?w=1)
Lot Essay
Few wheel-cut bottles appear to have been made on the scale of the present example; of very thick glass with large perfectly formed facets. Most that are known are also of blue rather than the clear glass seen here. One example is in the Tenri Museum, Japan (Fukai, Shinji: Persian Glass, New York, Tokyo and Osaka, 1977, no.71). A second was sold in these Rooms 17 October 1995, lot 290. Another with more elongated roundels on the body was excavated at Gurgan complete with a silver cover with niello Arabic benedictory inscription (Roohfar, Zohreh et al.: An anthology from the Islamic Period Art, Iranian National Museum, Tehran, 1996, p.26 (unpaginated), inv.no.8285). This latter piece has extra cross-hatched details carved between the roundels and may be slightly later in date than the other two. A clear example is in the Louvre (L'Islam dans les collections nationales, exhibition catalogue, Paris, 1977, no.340, p.162).
While the arrangement of circles on the body differs slightly between these, their size, the clear two steps on the upper shoulder, the division of the neck into three registers, the absence of a foot or of any form of rim or lip, and the heaviness of manufacture clearly links them into one group. Fukai dates the Tenri example to the 8th century, while that in Tehran is dated 11th/12th century which seems later than one would expect. The proposed date between the two, which is that given to a clear glass bottle with similar cutting on the body but of slightly different proportions purchased in Tehran and now in the Corning Museum of Glass seems the most probable (Carboni, Stefano and Whitehouse, David: Glass of the Sultans, New York, 2001, no.74, p.168).
While the arrangement of circles on the body differs slightly between these, their size, the clear two steps on the upper shoulder, the division of the neck into three registers, the absence of a foot or of any form of rim or lip, and the heaviness of manufacture clearly links them into one group. Fukai dates the Tenri example to the 8th century, while that in Tehran is dated 11th/12th century which seems later than one would expect. The proposed date between the two, which is that given to a clear glass bottle with similar cutting on the body but of slightly different proportions purchased in Tehran and now in the Corning Museum of Glass seems the most probable (Carboni, Stefano and Whitehouse, David: Glass of the Sultans, New York, 2001, no.74, p.168).