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Lot Essay
The inscription around the body reads: bi al-'izz wa al-iqbal wa al-dawla wa al-sa'ada wa al-'inaya wa al-'afiya wa al-karama wa al-qana'a (glory, prosperity, wealth, happiness, providence, good health, nobility and contentment).
That around the neck reads: al-'izz wa al-iqbal (glory and prosperity)
Rosewater sprinklers of this general form with spherical bodies and tall tubular necks from Eastern Persia are numerous and have been found in various materials including glass, silver and lead. Seven particularly fine silver examples, dateable to the 10th or 11th centuries, were found with the Harari hoard and are now in the L.A. Mayer Memorial Museum, Jerusalem.
The decorative details of the present example appear to be almost unparallelled amongst published metalwork. The only published related examples with repoussé decoration appear to be a bottle in the David Collection, Copenhagen (Sultan, Shah and Great Mughal, exhibition catalogue, Copenhagen, 1996, no.138, p.178, and fig.57, p.172) and a fragmentary bottle in the Victoria and Albert Museum (A.S. Melikian-Chirvani, Islamic Metalwork from the Iranian World, London, 1982, no.48, pp.120-121). Both bottles share with the present piece the repoussé figures around the shoulder. The Victoria and Albert example however has birds which are separately made and then applied, while the David Collection bottle has lions around the shoulder. An unpublished bottle in the al-Sabah Collection (inv.no.594M) also has a similar band of raised and repoussé lions around the shoulder. On none of these three is there an inscription around the lower part of the body although the Victoria and Albert bottle has a band of benedictory kufic around the base of the original neck.
The band of applied birds (or, in the case of the David and al-Sabah Collections' bottles, lions), clearly relates these bottles to the better-known magnificent candlesticks and ewers which have similar motifs around their shoulders. The birds found here tend to be used more frequently on ewers, notably a group of very impressive examples including one in the British Museum (Rachel Ward, Islamic Metalwork, London, 1993, no.56, p.78) and one in the Gallerie Estense, Modena (G. Curatola (ed.), Eredità dell'Islam, exhibition catalogue, Venice, 1993, no.125, pp.234-7). One of the finest of this group of ewers is in the Museum in Tiflis; its inscription shows that it was made in Herat in 1181 AD.
That around the neck reads: al-'izz wa al-iqbal (glory and prosperity)
Rosewater sprinklers of this general form with spherical bodies and tall tubular necks from Eastern Persia are numerous and have been found in various materials including glass, silver and lead. Seven particularly fine silver examples, dateable to the 10th or 11th centuries, were found with the Harari hoard and are now in the L.A. Mayer Memorial Museum, Jerusalem.
The decorative details of the present example appear to be almost unparallelled amongst published metalwork. The only published related examples with repoussé decoration appear to be a bottle in the David Collection, Copenhagen (Sultan, Shah and Great Mughal, exhibition catalogue, Copenhagen, 1996, no.138, p.178, and fig.57, p.172) and a fragmentary bottle in the Victoria and Albert Museum (A.S. Melikian-Chirvani, Islamic Metalwork from the Iranian World, London, 1982, no.48, pp.120-121). Both bottles share with the present piece the repoussé figures around the shoulder. The Victoria and Albert example however has birds which are separately made and then applied, while the David Collection bottle has lions around the shoulder. An unpublished bottle in the al-Sabah Collection (inv.no.594M) also has a similar band of raised and repoussé lions around the shoulder. On none of these three is there an inscription around the lower part of the body although the Victoria and Albert bottle has a band of benedictory kufic around the base of the original neck.
The band of applied birds (or, in the case of the David and al-Sabah Collections' bottles, lions), clearly relates these bottles to the better-known magnificent candlesticks and ewers which have similar motifs around their shoulders. The birds found here tend to be used more frequently on ewers, notably a group of very impressive examples including one in the British Museum (Rachel Ward, Islamic Metalwork, London, 1993, no.56, p.78) and one in the Gallerie Estense, Modena (G. Curatola (ed.), Eredità dell'Islam, exhibition catalogue, Venice, 1993, no.125, pp.234-7). One of the finest of this group of ewers is in the Museum in Tiflis; its inscription shows that it was made in Herat in 1181 AD.