[107] Gustav Schmoranz, Old Oriental Gilt and Enamelled Glass Vessels, 1899. One hundred and forty glass lamps are accounted for, of which number exactly half are now in the Museum of Arab Art at Cairo. The remaining pieces—goblets, bottles, etc.—only amount to forty-four, but these are nearly all in European museums or private collections.
[108] There was only one, for instance, in the Slade collection. There are now seven in the British Museum and nine at South Kensington, without counting the smaller specimens.
[109] For the important bearing of this point, see my book on Porcelain in this series.
[110] Note that the use of cobalt as an overglaze enamel on Chinese porcelain did not come in until the seventeenth century, and that this enamel at first gave more trouble than any other.
[111] I use this term for the writing with tall perpendicular strokes, although much of it, I understand, should not strictly bear the name.
[112] A good example may be seen in a large picture of the Circumcision by Marco Marziale in the National Gallery.
[113] Glass lamp-cups of this form are still made in India; Mr. Forrest, ex-Director of Records at the India Office, has shown me a specimen brought from Gujerat. Glass lamps of a similar construction seem to have been in use in bedrooms in Germany in the fifteenth century; they may be seen in contemporary pictures.
[114] The magnificent specimen of enamelled glass with geometrical decoration, which belonged to the late Baron Alphonse de Rothschild, figured in Schmoranz’s work as a lantern, is, of course, a stand for a candle. It resembles in every respect, except material, the well-known cylindrical candle-stands of inlaid bronze.
[115] A good example of the first is reproduced by M. Gerspach (L’Art de la Verrerie, p. 100) from a manuscript of the famous story-teller Hariri. For an instance of the second, see the side subjects on the Würzburg flask in the British Museum.
[116] The construction, indeed, closely resembles that of the Cairo cup-lamp described above.