Lot Essay
The white foliated pattern on dark opaque glass visible on this flask is common to a large group of glass vessels produced in Syria and/or Egypt during the mediaeval times up to the early Mamluk period. This group includes vessels of various shapes, from "spearlike" flasks to rounded bowls or perfume sprinklers (qumqum). A flask exhibited in Paris in 2001 together with six other marvered glass vessels of different forms commonly found under the Ayyubids has a flaring spout around which a white opaque trail has been wrapped similarly to that of the present flask (L'Orient de Saladin, exhibition catalogue, Paris, 2001, cat.193). A 13th century Syrian qumqum, flattened on two sides, can also be parallelled with our flask as each as a flattened body and a marvered foliate pattern (Stefano Carboni, Glass of the Sultans, New York, 2001, cat.58, pp.142-3). However, the flask's ovoid shape with its two protruding ears simulating handles is more evocative of that of a gourd with two suspension loops of which contemporary examples are found in ceramics or even metalwork (L'Orient de Saladin, op.cit, cat.131, pp.126/152).