SMALL MOSQUE LAMP OF CLEAR WHITE GLASS
PROBABLY SYRIAN, FOURTEENTH CENTURY
OIL VESSEL, PROBABLY FOR SUSPENSION IN ENAMELLED LAMP
SARACENIC, FOURTEENTH CENTURY
It may be said generally of the Saracenic enamelled glass as of the unadorned glass of the Byzantines that preceded it, that the lamp in one shape or another is the master form—no longer the wine-cup, as among the Romans. It would be an interesting study, were the thing possible, to trace the steps by which the later arrangement of an outer lantern of glass grew out of the simpler Byzantine or Sassanian prototype. But it must be remembered that these gorgeous mosque lamps or lanterns are quite a specialised form; they are only found, as far as we know, in Egypt and Syria, and they belong essentially to the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. The typical Oriental glass lamp is of quite a different type—a little cup in the shape of a truncated cone, from four to six inches in height. This is a form that is generally in use in the East at the present day. Such a vessel constitutes the essential part both of the street lanterns (the conical cup in this case passes through an aperture in the base) and of the coronas of lights by which the larger rooms are illuminated. In the latter case the cups pass through apertures in a ring or disc of wood or metal, which is itself suspended, often from an ostrich egg, in the way already described.
The little vessels are filled halfway up with water, upon which the oil floats; the wick passes up through a tube which is fixed at the bottom in various ways. I have before me a cup of this description brought from an old house in Cairo; it is of very thin, tough, greenish glass; the ‘kick’ at the bottom is pushed deeply in and is open at the apex. This opening has been sealed up with some hard pitchy substance, into which the little glass tube (of later date apparently) that carries the wick has been fixed. In another type of these cup or beaker lamps the base ends in a blunt point which is prolonged by one or more knops, so as to resemble the stem of a wine-glass without the foot.[[113]] This is the form that, as I have already mentioned, is so often represented, suspended from the roof in the altar-pieces of the Venetian painters. Such lamps are generally elaborately mounted in metal.
But the other form, the truncated cone (the ‘spear-butt’ of Paul the Silentiary), was in use in Italy at an earlier date. In the chapel of the Arena at Padua is a careful wall-painting of an elaborate compound corona or lantern built up with hoops of metal to resemble a large bird-cage. The little lamps of plain glass fitted into this framework are of two shapes; one resembles the truncated-cone cup just described, while the other may be compared to a mosque lamp with the foot removed and the body prolonged to a point. I do not know if this painting is contemporary with the famous frescoes of Giotto that cover the adjacent walls, but to judge from the Gothic framework that surrounds it, it cannot well be later than the fourteenth century.
This conical cup, then, was widely employed in the later Middle Ages for suspended lamps. It had quite replaced the balance-pan form of lamp support of early Byzantine days, some specimens of which, preserved in St. Mark’s treasury, we have already described: such pans, we should add, probably supported little standing lamps, more or less of the well-known classical form. But both these and the conical cups may possibly at times have held candles, an essentially Oriental means of illumination.[[114]]
We must now return to our enamelled glass, and consider a remarkable series of little beakers very similar in size and outline to the lamps of truncated conical form that we have been dwelling upon. Many of these have now passed, from the treasuries of churches and convents in which they had been long preserved, into various local museums. Round more than one of them a legend has grown up—the very names by which they are known are picturesque and suggestive—St. Hedwig’s beaker, the glass of Charlemagne, the goblet of the Eight Priests, and nearer home the famous Luck of Eden Hall. Such cups are to be found from the confines of Poland to our own rude border country; indeed, the enamelled beakers of this simple form have, for one reason or another, been chiefly preserved in northern lands: of late years, however, a few further examples have been brought from Syria and Egypt. No doubt the general tradition that these cups have been carried back from the Holy Land by crusaders and pilgrims is well founded. It is possible that some of them may, like the carved glasses, have travelled by northern routes rather than by the Mediterranean.
We see, it is true, a beaker of somewhat similar form in the hands of the wine-bibbers, in the illustrations to the manuscripts of contemporary poets, and even pictured on our enamelled glasses themselves.[[115]] There is, however, one point to be noted in many of the beakers in our collections, that makes it difficult to believe that they have ever been actually used as wine-cups. I refer to the remarkable construction of the base. This point had been overlooked by previous writers on the subject, even by Schmoranz in his great work. It was first pointed out by Mr. C. H. Read in a paper read before the Society of Antiquaries (Archæologia, vol. lviii. p. 217). To use Mr. Read’s words in speaking of one of these vessels: ‘The goblet is provided with a foot-rim that has been separately made and fixed on the base. The bottom of the vessel has been pushed up inwards, in the fashion to be found in a champagne bottle, but it has a peculiar feature in that the actual centre, the apex of the cone thus formed, is reflected downwards, apparently leaving a small hole through the bottom of the glass which is only closed by the fixing on of the added foot. This feature appears to be common in these Oriental goblets, and as far as my experience goes, is not found in any of European make.’ Such an arrangement would surely have one practical disadvantage if the cup had been used as a drinking-vessel—the liquid would lodge between the false bottom and the foot, so that it would be almost impossible to clean out the cup, and this is a point that would especially appeal to a Mohammedan. On the other hand, this open ‘kick’ would be admirably adapted to the introduction of a wick[[116]] if the vessel before the soldering on of the ring at the base had been used as a lamp. I should myself be inclined to think that the little cups in question, sold perhaps by Jewish dealers at Aleppo or at one of the Syrian ports to wandering pilgrims before their return from the Holy Land, were never intended for any practical use. The peculiarity of the form may have been a result of the prevailing use to which such vessels were put in their own country, or at least a survival of such a use. I should add, that for such a suggestion—it is nothing more—I am alone responsible.