An Umayyad or early Abbasid glass beaker, Near East, 8th/9th century

The pattern which decorates the main body was not commonly produced in the Islamic world, though it recalls the more familiar and diffused motifs of honeycomb, the closest comparable example is an amber beaker sold at Christie’s London, 8 April 2008, lot 50.

The technique of winding glass of the same colour around the main body of a piece was largely used in Medieval times, both in Europe and in the Near East, see for example a European globular glass beaker dated to the fifth/seventh century now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, inv. nos.17.193.335 and a seventh-century glass bottle attributed to Syria, now in the Toledo Museum of Art, inv. no.1923.2033 (published in Carboni & Whitehouse 2002, p.114, no.33).