Bottle with polo-playing riders
Berlin, Germany
Museum of Islamic Art at the Pergamon Museum
About Museum of Islamic Art at the Pergamon Museum, Berlin
Count F. von Pourtales, St. Petersburg
Around hegira 700 / AD 1300
I. 2573
Glass, enamelled and gilded.
Height 28 cm, diameter 19 cm
Mamluk
Syria or Egypt.
This bottle depicting polo players is the only complete example of Mamluk glasswork featuring a frieze of riders galloping to the right-hand side, one of whom is holding a polo stick. Polo was much-loved by the Mamluk rulers, uniting both military exercise and game. The bottle was made in Egypt or Syria, probably on commission for a Rasulid ruler in Yemen, as the red five-leaved rosettes on a white background on the frieze around the shoulder of the bottle appear also on metalwork which was produced on commission for these rulers.
The bottle is made of nearly colourless, light-yellow glass. Its bulbous body, with its long cylindrical neck, is made of optically blown glass with vertical grooves and it sits on a circular base. The paint work, which is contoured in red and uses either the colours of enamel or just plain gold, is restrained. The principal frieze on this bottle consists of 12 riders galloping to the right. Above this frieze, over a tendril, there is another frieze in which animals (hares, a gazelle, a bear and hunting dogs) are running to the left. Three rosettes break up this frieze. The bottle’s shoulder part is adorned with three birds. The neck is covered by a colourful inscription over a gold background. The inscription consists of general words of praise, and cannot be used as a starting point from which to date the object.
The bottle’s perfect condition never fails to provoke astonishment. Allegedly, the bottle made its way to China, and in the 19th century became part of the collection of Count F. von Pourtalès. Bottles, as other examples demonstrate, were often preserved because, filled with holy soil or other such relics, they became part of European church treasuries. This sort of painted receptacle must have been produced in large quantities, as the great number of fragments from different collections demonstrate – most of which were found in the rubble of Cairo’s old city. Obviously experienced artists created these small works of art in a short space of time.
Click here to watch a video presentation of this artefact.
Mamluk workshops produced elegant glass vessels such as this bottle, to which a glass painter has added a frieze with horsemen, one of whom has a polo mallet. The game of polo was extremely popular at the princely courts of the Mamluks. Enamel-painted glass vessels were much admired in Europe.
Similar painted enamelled glassworks were created during the Mamluk period. Furthermore, the characteristic red rosettes over a white background enable it to be attributed to the Rasulid rulers of Yemen (626–858 / 1228–1454), who probably commissioned the creation of this type of vessel.
Purchased by Count F. von Pourtalès, St. Petersburg, 1913.
Its form and characteristic enamel paintwork classify it as glasswork from the Mamluk period in Syria or Egypt. A more precise place of origin cannot be determined.
Carboni, S. and Whitehouse, D., Glass of the Sultans, New York, 2001, pp.199–273.
Lamm, C.J., Mittelalterliche Gläser und Steinschnittarbeiten aus dem Nahen Osten, Berlin, 1929–30, p.368, plate 158, no. 2.
Museum für Islamische Kunst, Catalogue, Mainz 2001, pp.82–3.
Jens Kröger "Bottle with polo-playing riders" in Discover Islamic Art, Museum With No Frontiers, 2024. https://islamicart.museumwnf.org/database_item.php?id=object;ISL;de;Mus01;33;en
Prepared by: Jens KrögerJens Kröger
Jens Kröger is a historian of Islamic art and archaeology. He studied European art history and Ancient Near Eastern archaeology at the Free University of Berlin and obtained his Ph.D. in 1978 on Sasanian and early Islamic stucco (Sasanidischer Stuckdekor, Mainz: von Zabern, 1982). As a curator at the Museum of Islamic Art at the Pergamon Museum, Berlin, he has participated in numerous exhibitions and published on the subject of pre-Islamic and Islamic art, including Nishapur: Glass of the Early Islamic Period (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1995), and edited Islamische Kunst in Berliner Sammlungen (Berlin, 2004).
Translation by: Maria Vlotides, Brigitte Finkbeiner
Translation copyedited by: Monica Allen
MWNF Working Number: GE 43
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