AFTERNOON SESSION at 2.30 P.M. PRECISELY
A KHORASSAN ENGRAVED BRONZE PERFUME BOTTLE, the body of icosohedral form, the lower triangle plain, the top triangle extending into the mouth cast with four human bearded faces within niches formed by arching hair, each of the other triangular faces engraved with bands forming four further triangles each containing scrolling palmette vine, basically 11th/12th century

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A KHORASSAN ENGRAVED BRONZE PERFUME BOTTLE, the body of icosohedral form, the lower triangle plain, the top triangle extending into the mouth cast with four human bearded faces within niches formed by arching hair, each of the other triangular faces engraved with bands forming four further triangles each containing scrolling palmette vine, basically 11th/12th century
3½in. (9cm.) high

Lot Essay

It appears from traces remaining that the ground of the triangular faces were filled with both red and black composition, giving an effect more ususally associated with Safavid brass items (cf. lot 308).

The lower half of an indentically formed bottle, formerly in the Pozzi Collection, is now in the Keir Collection (Feha©rvári, G.: slamic Metalwork of the Eighth to the Fifteenth Century in the Keir Collection, London, 1976, no.62, pp.66-67, pl.19b.). A bottle with related but different polyhedral body is in the Victoria and Albert Museum (Melikian-Chirvani, A.S.: Islamic Metalwork from the Iranian World, 8th-18th Centuries, London, 1982, no.5, p.44). The latter body has a simple flaring neck; a form more immediately compatible with the present body than the existing structure, which could be a later addition

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