Green Glass Bowl With Bird Decoration

Place of OriginIslamic, probably Egypt

Datelate 9th-10th century CE

DimensionsDiam: 4 5/8 in. (11.7 cm)

MediumGlass; tooled and impressed.

ClassificationGlass

Credit LinePurchased with funds from the Libbey Endowment, Gift of Edward Drummond Libbey

Object number

2004.80

Not on View

DescriptionA shallow bowl of transparent green bubbly glass circular shape with low straight sides and a shallow concave base. The sides are decorated with an impressed frieze of eleven birds facing left, with dotted eyes in relief. A thick iridescent weathering crust adheres to the interior; the exterior surface is slightly pitted where this crust has been removed. Intact. The bowl belongs to a group of hot-worked vessels decorated with tongs or dies. The outline of the bird is impressed on the wall of the bowl with pincers bearing the motif on its jaws. Only the eye of the bird stands out in relief, the outline of the bird is pressed into the glass on both the inner and outer surfaces of the vessel. The two jaw images are not aligned in many of the impressions, especially noticeable where the eye on the exterior surface is obliterated by the outline of the beak on the inner surface.

Published ReferencesA Peaceable Kingdom: The Leo Mildenberg Collection of Ancient Animals, Christie's, London, October 26, 2004, p.121, lot 181.

Zahlhaas, Gisela, Aus Noahs Arche: Tierbilder der Sammlung Mildenberg aus fünf Jahrtausenden, 1997, no. 53 (object A).

Whitehouse and Carboni, Glass of the Sultans, New York, 2001, p. 103, fig. 93; cf. ibid pp. 131-132, no. 48 (Berlin example).

Exhibition HistoryCleveland Museum of Art; Indiana University Art Museum, Bloomington; Toledo Museum of Art; J. Paul Getty Museum, Malibu; and University Art Museum, University of California, Berkeley, Animals in Ancient Art from the Leo Mildenberg Collection, Mainz: von Zabern Verlag, 1981-1983, I, nos. 43 and 44 respectively (Arielle P. Kozloff, editor).