It is not known at what time the large pilgrim’s bottle in the Domschatz of St. Stephan at Vienna was brought from the Holy Land (Schmoranz, Plate iv.). Much of the surface is left undecorated, and the glass is whitened by the chalky earth with which it is still filled. This earth is reputed to have come from Bethlehem, and to be stained with the blood of the Holy Innocents. The main design of musicians, seated beneath a conventional tree beside a stream (represented by a blue meander), calls to mind the decoration of one of the Dresden beakers. Near in style to this flask is the quaintly shaped pilgrim’s bottle in the British Museum, that was long in the possession of a noble family at Würzburg. I have already spoken of the superlative quality of the enamel on this remarkable example of Saracenic glass.
In the cathedral at Vienna is another enamelled vase (Schmoranz, Plate xiii.). This graceful amphora-shaped vessel follows exactly on the lines of the water jars of earthenware still in use on the coasts of the Mediterranean. The blood-stained earth that it once contained is gone, but the seal of attestation remains—strong evidence that the bottle was purchased at Bethlehem by the German pilgrim who brought it home. The blue is of a poor greyish tint, and the enamels on the whole low in tone, but the interlaced geometrical design is not the less decorative.
The little jug (Schmoranz, Pl. xxx.) now in the hands of one of the Rothschild family in Paris, was purchased at the Hamilton sale for £2730; in the catalogue it was described as a specimen of Venetian glass! The enamels are brilliant and well preserved—polo-players, mounted on horses of various colours, surround the body. A curious feature is a collar of wood round the base of the neck, kept in place by a series of claw-shaped projections.
The larger bottles with tall necks form a class by themselves; they are often remarkable for the delicacy of the decoration. On the neck of a tall and richly enamelled example in the museum at Vienna (Schmoranz, Pls. vi. and vii.) we find a distinctly Chinese motive:—in addition to the well-known phœnix may be seen a curious development of the cloud pattern, in the shape of four many-coloured bars. There is a fine example of these long-necked bottles at South Kensington and another in the British Museum. The first is remarkable in combining on the same piece motives from many sources—the Chinese phœnix, the so-called Egyptian hieroglyph, together with birds and animals in many styles ([Plate XXIII.]).
The bowls and dishes form a more miscellaneous group. These we may regard as essentially ‘table ware.’ In Persian manuscripts—in the illustrations to Hariri’s tales, for instance—we see such vessels piled up with fruits and cakes.
The shallow plate belonging to Lord Rothschild is perhaps the oldest example of this class in our collections. The medallions, skilfully filled with groups of lions attacking deer and with other similar subjects, are distinctly Byzantine, or some would say Sassanian, in character.
An interest of another kind may be found in a pair of dishes, one bowl-shaped, the other in the form of a tazza mounted on a tall foot, which have long stood side by side in the Cluny Museum at Paris. These are undoubtedly specimens of enamelled Saracenic glass, both probably dating from the fourteenth century, the bowl, however, somewhat earlier than the tazza. This latter vessel is decorated with a gold arabesque combined with the thick translucent blue enamel and the red lines so characteristic of Saracenic glass. A label, however, still proclaims this tazza to be ‘Style Arabo-Venitien, XVme siècle.’ On the other hand, no less an authority than Labarte (Histoire des Arts Industriels, iv. p. 546), it is true as long ago as 1864, found in this tazza an example of one of the processes of enamelling described by Theophilus, and on this ground deliberately declared it to be a Byzantine work. On the basis of a vague inscription found on the companion piece—the deep bowl—a whole theory of the Egyptian or Byzantine-Egyptian origin of this enamelled glass has been built up by a German writer (Carl Friedrich, Die Alt-Deutschen Gläser).
There is in the British Museum a large deep bowl with a gigantic cufic inscription in blue, overlaid with scrolls of white enamel. The coarsely executed but effective decoration calls to mind that on some of the Cairene mosque lamps. This bowl is known to have come from Damietta, and it may perhaps supply an argument for those who find the origin of some of the enamelled glass in the neighbouring town of Mansourah, where glass-works are known to have existed (Lane-Poole, Arab Art, p. 209).
We have finally a class of high-footed bowls with lids; of these, unfortunately, no undamaged example is known; the nearest approach is perhaps the bowl with a perfect lid but defective foot in the British Museum. The decoration in this case is of great interest. The medallions in the field, with fleurs-de-lis, Chinese phœnixes, and quaint monster-sphinxes and griffins, should be especially noted.