A fine and rare pale blue cut glass bottle with funnel neck, Persia, 10th-11th century

the glass of pale blue tone, the body of spherical form with a flat base and narrow tapering neck, the surface decorated with wheel-cut decoration with a large frieze around the body made up of diamond and palmette motifs with cross-hatch detail flanked by a double register of scrolls, the shoulder with narrow hatched design, the neck with diamond and lozenge bands

Ray Winfield Smith, sold Sotheby's London, 14 July 1986, lot 5

A comparable piece in the Khalili Collection displays similar engraved decoration (see Goldstein 2005, p.201) A number of sherds and vessels with related decoration were unearthed during the excavation at Nishapur and have been subsequently published by Kröger in 1995. Kröger classified the designs according to three techniques; linear, intermediate and slant-cut.  The current lot displays the linear style (Kröger 1995, pp.163-164).