© The Metropolitan Museum of Art


This item has been added to the Database within the Explore Islamic Art Collections project. Information is available in: English, Arabic.

Name of Object:

Glass bowl

Location:

New York, United States of America

Holding Museum:

The Metropolitan Museum of Art

About The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Date of Object:

Hegira mid-4th–early 5th century / AD late 10th–early 11th century

Museum Inventory Number:

1974.74

Material(s) / Technique(s):

Glass, bluish; blown, stained

Dimensions:

H: 10.7cm, Max. Diameter: 15.3cm

Period / Dynasty:

Fatimid

Provenance:

Probably Egypt

Description:

The shape, size, and decoration of this bowl demonstrate an affinity between lustre‑painted glass and ceramic lustreware, as the division of its walls into panels and the use of stylised palmette‑tree motifs also frequently appear on ceramic lustre‑painted bowls made in Fatimid Egypt. The Arabic inscription around the rim of this bowl, painted in a highly stylised angular kufic script, has not yet been deciphered.

How Object was obtained:

Purchase, Rogers Fund and Gifts of Richard S. Perkins, Mr. and Mrs. Charles Wrightsman, Mr. and Mrs. Louis E. Seley, Walter D. Binger, Margaret Mushekian, Mrs. Mildred T. Keally, Hess Foundation, Mehdi Mahboubian and Mr. and Mrs. Bruce J. Westcott, 1974

Vendor: Saeed Motamed, Frankfurt

Former owner [dealer]: [Saeed Motamed, Frankfurt, until 1974; sold to MMA]

Selected bibliography:

Bloom, Jonathan M., Arts of the City Victorious. Islamic Art and Architecture in Fatimid North Africa and Egypt, New Haven/London: Yale University Press, 2007: 106, ill. fig. 76 (colour).
Carboni, Stefano and Whitehouse, David, Glass from Islamic Lands. The al-Sabah Collection, Kuweit National Museum, New York: Thames and Hudson, 2001: 58–59.
Carboni, Stefano, Whitehouse, David, Brill, Robert H. and Gudenrath, William, Glass of the Sultans, New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001: 218–19, no. 108, ill. 218 (colour).
Carboni, Stefano,"The Arts of the Fatimid Period at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, " The Ismaili, (2008): 8, ill. fig. 12 (colour).
Ekhtiar, Maryam, Canby, Sheila R., Haidar, Navina and. Soucek, Priscilla P. (eds), Masterpieces from the Department of Islamic Art in The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2011: 159–60, no. 108, ill. 159 (colour).
Ekhtiar, Maryam, "Shimmering Surfaces: Lustre Ceramics of the Islamic World", Arts of Asiavol, 42/5 (2012): 91, ill. fig. 1 (colour).
Ettinghausen, Richard, "Islamic Art", Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, 33/1 (Spring 1975): ill. 4 (colour).
Hess, Catherine, The Arts of Fire. Islamic Influences on Glass and Ceramics of the Italian Renaissance, Los Angeles: Getty Trust Publications, 2004: 104–5, ill. pl. 15 (colour).
Jenkins-Madina, Marilyn, "Islamic Art in the Metropolitan Museum of Art", Arts & the Islamic World, Arts & The Islamic World, 3/3 (Autumn 1985): 52, ill. fig. 5.
Jenkins-Madina, Marilyn, "Islamic Glass: A Brief History", Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, 44/ 2 (Fall 1986): 22, ill. fig. 20 (colour).
No shouchu, Hikari, The Glass, Tokyo: Shueisha, 1992: 97, no. 155, ill. 97.
Smith, Ray Winfield, Glass from the Ancient World. The Ray Winfield Smith Collection,, Corning, NY: Corning Museum of Glass, 1957: 256, ill. pl. X, 519. Related work from the Corning Museum of Glass, inv. no. 59.1.120.
Swietochowski, Marie and Jenkins-Madina, Marilyn, Notable Acquisitions 1965–1975, New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1975: 146, ill. (b/w).

Additional Copyright Information:

The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Purchase, Rogers Fund and Gifts of Richard S. Perkins, Mr. and Mrs. Charles Wrightsman, Mr. and Mrs. Louis E. Seley, Walter D. Binger, Margaret Mushekian, Mrs. Mildred T. Keally, Hess Foundation, Mehdi Mahboubian and Mr. and Mrs. Bruce J. Westcott, 1974

Citation of this web page:

 "Glass bowl" in Explore Islamic Art Collections. Museum With No Frontiers, 2024. https://islamicart.museumwnf.org/database_item.php?id=object;EPM;us;Mus23;41;en

MWNF Working Number: US3 41

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Islamic Dynasties / Period

Fatimids


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