Matthew Thomas
Senior Specialist
Lot 23
A large circular glass Roundel depicting a drinking scene Persia, 12th Century
8 October 2013, 10:30 BST
London, New Bond Street£7,000 - £10,000
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A large circular glass Roundel depicting a drinking scene
Persia, 12th Century
Persia, 12th Century
of circular form containing two seated figures wearing tunics and turbans, one holding a beaker and the other a long-necked flask on a ground of interlacing arabesque
12.6cm. diam.
12.6cm. diam.
Footnotes
Impressed glass medallions with figural scenes have been known since excavations in Uzbekistan in the late 1930s unearthed a group of coloured glass roundels depicting animals and figures hunting and playing musical instruments. Such medallions exist in the Pergammon Museum, Berlin, the Tareq Rajeb Museum, Kuwait and the al-Sabah Collection, Kuwait, the great majority of which depict human figures. The use of these medallions is generally thought to have been as decorative elements set into stained glass windows. (Carboni and Whitehouse, Glass of the Sultans, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 2001, pp. 272-278).