IRAN OR POSSIBLY EGYPT, 11-12TH CENTURY

It is rare to find a vessel that uses opaque turquoise glass as the body material. The most famous example is the wheel-cut bowl in the treasury of Saint Mark, Venice, which on the grounds of the style of carving is atttributed to Khorassan (Giovanni Curatola, Eredità dell'Islam, exhibition catalogue, Venice, 1993, no.26, pp.98-9; also Stefano Carboni, Glasss of the Sultans, exhibition catalogue, New York, 2002, no.82, pp.176-7). This is despite the fact that apparently no turquoise glass was actually found in the excavations at Nishapur (Jens Kroeger, Nishapur Glass of the Early Islamic period, New York, 1995). Another example is a wheel-cut bottle in the Corning Museum (Carboni, op.cit, no.75, pp.169-70). The note to that entry lists a small number of further examples. The colour was also known in Syria, as well as being the base for a very few Mamluk enamelled vessels such as a fragment in the al-Sabah collection.