An Indian Green and Yellow Flecked Glass Flask, probably Ahmednagar, Circa 1600

A group of thirteen Chinese bowls and eight flasks of green and greenish blue glass were excavated in June 1965, in the Baluchipura ward of old Ahmednagar city, located in modern day Maharashtra.  The latest of the Chinese bowls bore a reign mark of the Longjing Emperor (1567-1572), dating this caché to the late sixteenth century.  These items would all have once been the property of the Ahmednagar court under the rule of either Murtazah Nizam Shah (1565-1588) or his brother Burhan Nizam Shah (1591-1594).  Three of the eight excavated glass pieces are illustrated by G.Dikshit in A History of Indian Glass, Bombay, 1969, pl. iv.

The style of the present flask seems to have been characteristic of the late sixteenth century.  Similar bottles appear in a painting in Jahangir's album painted by Bichitr; see Arnold and Wilkinson, Catalogue of Indian Miniatures in the Library of Chester Beatty, Oxford, 1936, vol.iii, pl. 58.  See also a Bundi painting dated to 1632, with a depiction of a similarly shaped bottle, illustrated by  D. Barrett and B. Gray, Painting of India, Skira, 1963, p.147.