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Arts of the Islamic World
Sale: L09721 | Location: London
Auction Dates: Session 1: Wed, 01 Apr 09 10:30 AM
LOT 96
A HIGHLY IMPORTANT MAMLUK GILDED AND ENAMELLED GLASS
BUCKET OR FINGER-BOWL, SYRIA OR EGYPT, MID-14TH CENTURY
THE ROTHSCHILD BUCKET
600,000—800,000 GBP
Lot Sold. Hammer Price with Buyer's Premium: 1,553,250
GBP
MEASUREMENTS
measurements note
21.4cm. height 20cm. max. diam.
DESCRIPTION
made of thick glass with a brownish tinge and some large
and many tiny bubbles, of slightly flaring cylindrical
form with a raised flange to the exterior below the
mouth, the sides decorated with a blue enamelled
inscription set against a winding white scroll with
animal terminals in green, yellow, white and black
interspersed with red leaves, the thick red enamel ground
and border of the inscription appear pinkish but were
originally gilded, the lower section with four roundels
containing lions striding to the left with right paw
raised and long tail doubling back over their rump, the
roundels framed in red with gold lobes as an outer edge
and a gold ground, the roundels separated by
double-headed eagles outlined in red and filled with gold
with wings outstretched and claws clasping the
dragon-headed terminals of their tails, bordered below
and around the rim with friezes of red palmettes once
gilded all over, with small green enamel dots decorating
alternate palmettes on the lower frieze, a narrow twisted
and knotted cable outlined in red and filled with gold
runs around the vessel just above the flange
PROVENANCE
Collection Frédéric Spitzer (1815-90)
Sold at auction: P. Chevallier & C. Mannheim, Paris,
17 April-16 June 1893, lot 1975, Travail oriental (XIVe
siécle), pl.XLIX, where purchased by Baron Alphonse de
Rothschild for 14,500 francs.
Collection Baron Alphonse de Rothschild (1827-1905).
Collection Baron Edouard de Rothschild (1868-1949).
Collection Baroness Batsheva de Rothschild (1914-1999).
Rothschild inventory nos. P.48 and E.de.310.
Sold at auction: Christie's London, The Collection of the
late Baroness Batsheva de Rothschild, 14 December 2000,
lot 16 (where catalogued as "Probably France, second
half 19th century").
EXHIBITED
Paris, Musée de l'Orangerie, Les Chefs-d'oeuvre des
Collections françaises retrouvés en Allemagne par la
Commission de Récupération artistique et les Services
alliés, 1946, no.185 "Syrie Alep (fin du XIIIe
siécle)", description by C. Dreyfuss.
LITERATURE AND REFERENCES
E. Garnier, 'Collections de M. Spitzer', Gazette des
Beaux-Arts, deuxiéme période, 1884, XXIX, p.297, fig.1.
E. Gerspach, L'art de la verriere, Paris, 1885,
pp.112ff., fig.53.
E. Garnier, Histoire de la verriere et de l'émaillerie,
Tours, 1886, p.64.
E. Garnier, 'La verrerie', in Collection Spitzer,
Antiquité - Moyen Age - Renaissance, Vol.III, Paris,
1891, no.7, p.70, pl.II and title vignette to chapter on
p.81.
G. Schmoranz, Old oriental gilt and enamelled glass
vessels, English version, Vienna and London, 1899,
pp.20-1, 33.
R. Schmidt, Das Glas, Berlin & Leipzig, 1922, p.51,
fig.28.
E. Rouveyre, Analyse et compréhension des oeuvres et
objets d'art, Paris, 1926, p.24, fig.6.1
C.J. Lamm, Mittelalterliche Gläser und
Steinschnittarbeiten aus dem Nahen Osten, Berlin,
1929-30, Vol.I, p.306, Vol.II, pl.115, fig.12, 'Damascus
group, circa 1260-70'.
R. Ward: 'Big Mamluk Buckets', Annales du 16e Congres de
l'Association Internationale pour l'Histoire du Verre,
London, 2003, pp.182-185 and colour plates 39-41.
CATALOGUE NOTE
inscriptions
'I am a toy for the fingers shaped as (in the form of) a
vessel
I contain cool water'
(reading by Professor Doris Abouseif)
The inscription is written in informal cursive style in
two sections of equal length. Each section begins above
and to the left of one of the lions. The same inscription
is sometimes found on round bottomed brass bowls, which
were generally used as finger bowls in the Mamluk period;
only one of these has been published (Ward 2003, fig.3).
Poetic verses derived from the metalwork's repertoire are
seen on other glass vessels, such as the bowl in the
Metropolitan Museum of Art (Carboni and Whitehouse 2001,
pp. 240-42).
All of the decorative motifs can be paralleled on Mamluk
glass. The combination of heavy enamels with simple
gilded motifs outlined in red, scattered roundels,
animated scrolls, is also seen on the pilgrim flask in
the British Museum (Carboni and Whitehouse 2001, pp.
247-49). A splayed eagle, albeit with only one head,
friezes of palmettes, scattered roundels, animals in gold
outlined in red, scattered dots of enamel are all found
on the bowl in the Metropolitan Museum of Art mentioned
above. The lion roundels were probably inspired by the
emblem used by Sultan Baybars (1260-1277), but they
continued to be used as decorative motifs throughout the
fourteenth century on vessels and even on coins (Ward
1998, p.31).
The brownish, bubbly quality of the body glass, the range
and application of the enamels are typical of Mamluk
glass vessels. Analyses of the body glass and enamels by
Julian Henderson show them to be consistent with a
fourteenth-century Middle Eastern glass object (analyses
published in Ward 2003, Table. 1). Henderson's most
significant discovery was that the blue enamel is
coloured by lapis lazuli rather than cobalt. Lapis lazuli
was frequently used in blue enamels on Mamluk glass but
is unknown from other periods.
The use of thick red enamel to give a three-dimensional
quality to the framing bands and the palmettes demanded
exceptional skill from the glass maker. This impasto
technique is only seen on a small number of Mamluk
vessels, all of the highest quality, such as the Kassel
and Waddesdon beakers (Ward 1998, figs 12.4 and colour
plate J).
The bucket has the distinctive base structure unique to
beakers produced in the Middle East in the thirteenth and
fourteenth century: a separate pad of glass was applied
to the foot of the vessel which causes the inner wall to
dome while the top part is pulled down in the centre
where it touches the pad, leaving a distinctive dimple in
its top (Tait 1998, p.52-3).
Four other buckets survive. The finest of them has been
in the Historisches Landesmuseum in Kassel since its
foundation in the 1770s (Ward 2003, colour plate 40). The
second used to be in Prince Yusuf Kamal's collection and
is now in the Museum of Islamic Art in Cairo (illustrated
in Lamm 1929-30 vol. II, pl. 182 no.2). The third was in
the collection of Madame Edouard Andre in 1929 but its
present location is unknown (illustrated in Schmoranz
1899, 33 fig. 30; Lamm 1929-30 vol. II, pl. 179 no. 11).
The fourth is in the Gulbenkian collection in Lisbon (no.
2377, illustrated in Ribeiro and Hallet 1999, pp.
120-121, no. 8). The buckets also relate closely to two
glass candlesticks, which are really just inverted
buckets with a neck and socket attached (Corning Museum
90.1.1, Carboni and Whitehouse 2001, pp. 270-71;
ex-Eumorphopoulos collection, illustrated in Hardie 1998,
fig 20.5). Fragments of the distinctive rim and pinched
flange seen on both buckets and candlesticks have been
found at Fustat (for illustrations of some of these see
Lamm, 1929-30 vol. 2, pl. 119 no.17; pl. 132 nos 26 &
28; pl. 133 no.1; pl.182 no.2).
Lamm attributed the bucket to his Damascus group and
dated it 1260–1270 (Lamm 1929-30 vol. I, 306, vol.
II, pl. 115 no. 12), probably because he believed the
lion roundels to be emblems of sultan Baybars. More
recently, Ward has suggested that it should be dated to
the mid-fourteenth century on the basis of stylistic and
technical comparisons with other Mamluk glass and metal
vessels (Ward 2003 185).
bibliography
Carboni, S., and Whitehouse, D., Glass of the Sultans,
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 2001.
Christie's, The Collection of the late Baroness Batsheva
de Rothschild, London, 14 December 2000.
Garnier, E., 'Collections de M. Spitzer', Gazette des
Beaux-Arts XXIX, deuxième période, Paris, 1884.
Garnier, E., L'Art de la Verrerie, Paris, 1885.
Garnier, E., Histoire de la Verrerie et de l'Emaillerie,
Tours, 1886.
Garnier, E., 'La verrerie', in Collection Spitzer,
Antiquité - Moyen Age - Renaissance, vol. III, Paris,
1891.
Lamm, C.J., Mittelalterliche Gläser und
Steinschnittarbeiten aus dem Nahen Osten, Berlin,
1929-30.
Ribeiro, M., and Hallet, J., Mamluk Glass in the Calouste
Gulbenkian Museum, Calouste Gulbenkian Museum, Lisbon,
1999.
Tait, H., 'The Palmer Cup and related glasses exported to
Europe in the Middle Ages' in Ward, R. ed., Gilded and
Enamelled Glass from the Middle East, London, British
Museum Press, 1998, pp. 50-55.
Ward, R., 'Glass and brass' in Ward, R. ed., Gilded and
Enamelled Glass from the Middle East, London, British
Museum Press, 1998, pp. 30-34.
Ward, R., 'Big Mamluk Buckets', Annales du 16e Congrès
de l'Association Internationale pour l'Histoire du Verre,
London, 2003, pp.182-185 and colour plates 39-41.
seen on www.Sotherbys.com
ref. Guide to Mamluk Art
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