A rare intact Fatimid lustre-decorated long-necked flask, probably Egypt, 10th-11th century

of transparent greenish glass, mallet-shaped with cylindrical body and rounded shoulders, tall narrow neck with constricted mouth and broad flat mouth rim, with kick base and pontil mark on the underside, blown, tooled and decorated in monochrome lustre with a central register of interlaced kufic with vestiges of a benedictory inscription and smaller scroll bands above and below, the neck with a band of zig-zag pattern above a chain motif, all set between double-line borders  

inscriptions

Traces of benedictory inscriptions

A markedly similar bottle, also showing vestiges of a kufic inscription in golden lustre and ascribed by Sidney Goldstein to "Egypt 10th-11th century", is to be found in the Khalili Collection, acc. no.GLS 449 (see Sidney M. Goldstein, Glass, From Sasanian antecedents to European imitations. The Nasser D. Khalili Collection of Islamic Art, vol. XV, London-Oxford, 2005, p.138-9, no.166). The parts of the benedictions that can be read are only found on Egyptian and Andalusian artefacts.