A fine and rare Mughal blue glass spittoon, North India, 17th-18th century

the free blown blue glass body of baluster form with bell-shaped base, narrow neck with wide flanged rim, finely painted in gold leaf with a design of poppy-heads and scrolling garlands reserved against a gold ground, bordered by narrow gilt hatched and poppy-leaf bands

This intact and rare glass spittoon represents the pinnacle of Mughal glass production.  Compared to the production of hookah bases, glass spittoons are extremely rare.  The type of vessel may have been inspired by Chinese prototypes, though in India its function was inextricably linked to the custom of betel-nut chewing. Carboni charts the development of the shape with the present example representing the eighteenth-century characteristic of a bell-shaped base with splayed upper section (Carboni 2001, p.386).  A similar spittoon is in the Harish Chandra Agarwal collection, Hyderabad (Dikshit 1969, pl.30b)