An Important engraved Cobalt Blue Glass Dish with Inscription, Syria, 9th century

free-blown, tooled and worked on the pontil, of wide shallow form with a kick base and flared walls, the interior incised with a diamond point with a central medallion filled with leaf motifs on a hatched ground, the vertical sides with alternating scrolling rope ornaments and a band of inscriptions

overall in relatively good condition considering age and rarity. there is some restoration and the cracks are visible. some irridescence across, as viewed.
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inscriptions

"Verily, reflection in speech is wisdom and speech after reflection is more graceful. Well-being"

This remarkable vessel exhibits features that link it to a group of glass objects that vary in both form and colour, with vases, bottles, bowls, dishes, and ewers in light blue, yellow, green, purple and colourless glass contributing to the series. However, each item is quite distinctive in its decoration: applied in the sgraffiato technique and utilising a hard stone or diamond-tipped tool to etch a design onto the surface of the glass. The ornament, with its predominantly diagonal hatching, triangular and cable forms, recurs throughout the group and are what distinguish them as a coherent whole.  Nevertheless, the quality of the decoration and the principal decorative theme varies from piece to piece with some bearing foliate and vegetal motifs in addition to the geometric patterns.

During the excavation of a stupa in the Shaanxi province of north eastern China, six pieces from this group of Islamic glass were discovered.  The stupa was built and sealed during the Tang dynasty in 874 AD to house relics of the historical Buddha, Sakyamuni, with which were buried several high-quality items including the glassware, thus providing an ante quem date of no later than 874 AD for the entire assemblage. Moreover, the find indicates the high esteem in which Islamic glass was held in China and provides further evidence for the movement of glass eastwards from the Islamic lands along the arteries of the Silk Route.

In the past, scholars had suggested Nishapur as a place of production for the group due to the discovery of a glass sherd in the area during the 1930s that exhibits the characteristic incised work.  However, Carboni argues for a Central Islamic origin (Carboni 2001, pp.76-81) since the majority of pieces are reported to have been discovered in Syria in the regions of Larisa and Raqqa, whilst not one piece has been excavated in North Africa or the western Islamic lands. Carboni suggests that the Nishapur fragment was transported there from Syria or Mesopotamia due to the city's importance as a staging post on the overland route from the Near to the Far East (Carboni 2001, p.81). That said, the inscription on the present example is echoed on quite a number of slip-painted pottery vessels from Nishapur.

The most closely comparable example to the present lot can be found in the al-Sabah collection (Kuwait 2001, p.76, no.17a, and New York 2002, p.166, no.72) with its vividly blue glass, and richly decorated surface of hatched ground, and predominant cable and triangular motifs. Other pieces from the group can be found in various institutions including a fragment in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, part of a plate, that is closely related to the present example.  Exhibiting the same dark blue colour, it bears a similar motif with decorative bands expanding from a central point, the outermost displaying the ubiquitous cable pattern against a hatched ground (New York 1995, pp.117-119, nos.164-165). The Benaki Museum also has several related pieces in their collection (Athens 1977, pp.76-77, nos.252-259).