A quantity of glass fragments
A study collection of glass Fragments of the Early and Medieval Islamic World assembled by Ralph Pinder-Wilson
Egypt or Syria, 8th - 13th Centuries
comprising a total of 115 glass fragments and seven miniature glass bottles or ointment jars, contained in a variety of small cardboard, lacquer or ivory boxes and paper envelopes. The glass fragments include four lustre fragments from flask, beakers or small bowls, one of which has part of an inscription, made in naturally-coloured glass. One elaborate fragment is decorated on both sides in muted greens and yellows, and there are four fragments with streaky reddish-brown lustre on green glass. There are 46 fragments of mostly purple glass vessels decorated with opaque white or sometimes opaque light turquoise marvered trailing either left in spirals
or combed to form festoons and feather patterns, including bases from 12 square-sectioned flasks with tapering bodies, while other pieces are further decorated with gilded scrolling. Among the moulded vessels there are three fragments with impressed tonged decoration and part of the body from a mould-blown flask with scrolling tendrils. There are 13 fragments of Mamluk gilt and enamelled glass including rare examples in dark blue and in opaque turquoise glass and a colourless fragment with part of a turbaned figure, while some pieces are decorated on both sides of the vessel wall. Other interesting pieces include a gold-glass tessera, part of a moulded glass tile with small raised squares, two prunted fragments where the applied prunts have turquoise tips, half a body from a flattened small bottle with cut decoration, an opaque streaky red pushed-in base from an Egyptian bowl, part of an Islamic glass weight, a Roman opaque white and emerald-green cased fragment, an emerald-green heart-shaped inlay, a rim fragment from a mosaic glass bowl, a broken polychrome mosaic glass rod, and a late Roman painted bowl fragment.
Together with excavation drawings by Ralph-Pinder Wilson
(115)
Sold for £6,600 inc. premium

Footnotes

  • Provenance:
    The Collection of the late Ralph Pinder-Wilson (1919-2008).

    Ralph Pinder-Wilson was one of the foremost Islamic scholars of his generation, a former Assistant Keeper of Oriental Antiquities in the British Museum (1949-76) and Director of the British Institute of Afghan Studies in Kabul (1976-82). When the Institute was forced to close in 1982 under charges of espionage, Ralph was brought to trial, accused of encouraging Afghans to leave the country, and was given a ten-year prison sentence. He was released later the same year following the intervention of MP George Galloway. He returned to the UK and spent the rest of his life a dedicated, highly-respected and much loved expert in the field of Islamic art.

    Ralph had a special interest in Islamic glass and this interesting collection of glass fragments reflects this. Many of the fragments are from Fustat, Egypt, and have parallels to those he published with George Scanlon in Fustat, Glass of the Early Islamid Period. Finds Excavated by the American Research Center in Egypt 1964-1980, London, 2001. Other fragments are labelled as having come from Raqqa, Syria. The fragments are for the most part decorated and represent all the major developments seen in Islamic glass-making from the 8th to 13th centuries, including lustre-painting, pinching with decorated tongs, facet and deep cutting, mould-blown decoration, trailed and marvered, and gilded and enamelled decoration. For similar fragments with detailed discussions cf. Stefano Carboni, Glass from Islamic Lands. The al-Sabah Collection, London, 2001.

Category: Islamic and Oriental Art / Islamic and Indian Art


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