teenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth centuries. This enamelled glass is important for more than one reason. It is u

parture, and it preceded, as far as we know, the use of any material of the kind in the decoration of porcelain and fayence. The Romans and the Byzantine Greeks,

are still quite in the dark as to the origin of the art, it may be some consolation to remember that barely thirty years ago the few rare pieces

rabic inscription being found on such vessels, but on the deeply carved vases of rock crystal that seem to have formed the models that these engraved glasses closely followed, in more than one case ta

in so many other matters, the traditions of the countries in which they dwelt. At this period their art was at best but a mingling of Byzantine and Sassanian elements. But before the end of the twelfth century a great change had come about, and during the course of the next century there had arisen a definite style-one that has remained ever since the type of what we know as Saracenic art. It wo

ed from translucent enamels applied to the surface of glass lamps and vases. The Saracens, in the stained glass of their windows, merely followed in the old Byzantine lines; the pierced framework of plaster, filled in with fragments of coloured glass, is but a development of the marble chassis of the Romans and the later Greeks. In the West, on the other hand

its contents during a military riot between Turkish and Soudanese troops in 1062. Here among the vast accumulation of Oriental wealth were, it is stated, many thousand vases of rock crystal and others of sardonyx. We hear also at this time (but not in the list of these treasures) of glass mirro

bear the name of the ruler, while those of the later Memlook times have only private inscriptions. The glass varies from an amber tone to a dark bottle-green, but many are quite opaque and of a purplish black. As these little discs are of uniform weights, corresponding to parts and multiples of the gold dinar and the silver dirhem, they were at one time regarded as coins; they are now, however, recognised as weights, but essentially weights for weighing coins. Indeed a contemporary Arab writer (985 A.D.) distinctly states that in his day in Egypt they used money weights of glass; and an A

ew style arose we must look not to Egypt, but to the tract of land lying along the frontier of the Byzantine and Sassanian empires, from Tabriz to the north, by Mosul to Bagdad and Bassorah. The old Persian and Sassanian elements here doubtless prevailed over the Byzantine tradition; but the word Persian must not be applied to the new art, for the Turkish element was

was carried on through the Middle Ages: a German pilgrim of the fifteenth century speaks of the many furnaces in which the 'black glass' was melted: the industry is indeed even now not extinct. There is one form of early Arab glass which we may perhaps associate with this centre. Certain long nail-shaped bottles, square in section an

cities of the coast the glass industry was in the hands of the Jews. This was about the middle of the twelfth century. The Jews long before that time had, it would seem, a monopoly of glass made with lead. It was to them, then, that the first enamellers must have gone for t

ndeed few important periods in Egyptian history when this has not been the case. Alexandria, it is true, had fallen from its old position,[106] but it is distinctly recorded that glass was made in the fourteenth century at Mansourah, the recently founded 'town of victory,' above Damietta. At many places in Upper Egypt, especially at Achmi

al interest, of a conspicuous place in our museums or on the shelves of the most fastidious amateur. Their number is strictly limited-indeed Herr Schmoranz has drawn up a careful list wh

from the thirteenth century. Several famous pieces have for centuries been preserved in the treasuries of Western churches. For these it is claimed th

s much attention been given to them; they were almost unknown to the older collectors.[108] The supply appears, however, to be already exhausted. The d

pronounced bottle-green to an amber tint; it is more rarely of a greyish white. The size of many of the lamps and bowls must have necessitated the use of large melting-pots as well as considerable skill in blowing and manipulation. The

y Roman type. The specimen examined, however, contained in addition to the lime as much as 4 per cent. of magnesia. As Dr. Linke points out, the presence of this last base would hinder the complete fluidity of the glass in the pots and make it difficult to get rid of the bubbles. But whether the pre

uch lead coloured by various metallic oxides. The opaque red is given by oxide of iron, the green by oxide of copper, and the yellow by antimonic acid. The presence of this last substance is of interest: Dr. Percy found antimony in the glaze of Assyrian bricks, and I have tak

the origin of this fine blue to minute fragments of lapis lazuli, only partially dissolved in the flux, we must refer to the German chemist's report. Now as ultramarine, the colouring matter of this mineral, contains a considerable amount of sulphur, some of it in an unoxidised state, it could not be used in combination with a flux containing lead, and indeed an analysis of the blue enamel proved it to be essentially of the same composition as the glass of the lamps; it contained, however, as much as 24 per cent of alkali, and this

TE

ENAMELL

OR MESOPOTAMIAN.

th a free hand upon a detailed pattern of gold, with the object of accentuating the design. This gold brocading, when it is preserved, is of great beauty, especially that found upon the older pieces. Examine carefully the tall-necked bottle in the Slade collection: the body is covered with a fine arabesque of red lines,

n the exquisitely enamelled bottle from Würzburg in the British Museum (Plate XXII.), perhaps technically the most superb specimen of this class of decoration that has come down to us, the pinkish tint of the red and the manner in which it is gradated into the white, call to mind the use of the rouge d'or on Chinese porcelain of the eighteenth century; the green also of the conventional folia

ents-always the same jovial, round-faced type; in only one instance have I noticed an elderly man with a beard. We sometimes find a frieze with dogs chasing stags and hares, or it may be a row of conventional lions. Birds are still more frequent-flying geese, as in the background of the hunting scenes, or lon

e later mosque lamps is identical in drawing with the lotus that we see so frequently in Indian and Chinese art. It is often combined with what at first sight appears to be another flower, treated en rosette, with an involucre of six oval and six triangular petals, and an indication of a seed-vessel in t

TE

C ENAMEL

ENTH C

Upper and Lower Country' (a good example may be found on a bottle at South Kensington). Another badge takes the form of a strange bird with long tail-feathers, undoubtedly derived from the imperial ph?nix of China; any hesitation as to the origin of this design is removed on observing in the field certain little curly clouds, an essentially Chinese motive. A sword, a pair of polo-sticks, or still more often a cup, charged upon a fesse or band which divides the medallion, are badges of mor

ction, now, I think, belonging to Mr. Pierpont Morgan, an inscription in running characters on the foot has been read: 'Work of the poor slave Ali, son o

wever, of any example of these little internal lamps in our European collections, unless it be one of gilt green glass now at South Kensington (Plate

e rivalled the illumination of St. Sophia, described by Paul the Silentiary (p. 97). We must not forget another essential part of the Arab lamp: this is the little sphere from which the smaller chains that pass to the handles of the lamp radiate. In private houses-for the general arrangement is the same in them-this globe may be replaced b

the pictures of the Venetian painters of the later fifteenth century-of Bellini, and Cima, and Carpaccio-the lamps, of a strictly Orienta

TE

LAMP OF CLE

RIAN, FOURT

BLY FOR SUSPENSIO

, FOURTEE

. But it must be remembered that these gorgeous mosque lamps or lanterns are quite a specialised form; they are only found, as far as we know, in Egypt and Syria, and they belong essentially to the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. The typical Oriental glass lamp is of quite a different type-a little cup in the shape of a truncated cone, from four to six inches in height. This is a form that is generally in use

bottom is pushed deeply in and is open at the apex. This opening has been sealed up with some hard pitchy substance, into which the little glass tube (of later date apparently) that carries the wick has been fixed. In another type of these cup or beaker lamps the base ends in a blunt point which i

f metal to resemble a large bird-cage. The little lamps of plain glass fitted into this framework are of two shapes; one resembles the truncated-cone cup just described, while the other may be compared to a mosque lamp with the foot removed and the

days, some specimens of which, preserved in St. Mark's treasury, we have already described: such pans, we should add, probably supported little standing lamps, more o

grown up-the very names by which they are known are picturesque and suggestive-St. Hedwig's beaker, the glass of Charlemagne, the goblet of the Eight Priests, and nearer home the famous Luck of Eden Hall. Such cups are to be found from the confines of Poland to our own rude border country; indeed, the enamelled beakers of this simple form have, for one reason or another, been ch

a foot-rim that has been separately made and fixed on the base. The bottom of the vessel has been pushed up inwards, in the fashion to be found in a champagne bottle, but it has a peculiar feature in that the actual centre, the apex of the cone thus formed, is reflected downwards, apparently leaving a small hole through the bottom of the glass which is only closed by the fixing on of the added foot. This feature appears to be common in these Oriental goblets, and as far as my experience goes, is not found in any of European make.' Such an arrangement would surely have one practical disadvantage if the cup had been used as a drinking-vessel-the liquid would lodge between the false bottom and the foot, so that it would be almost impossible to clean