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Bottle with Blue Trails

12th century
On view at The Met Fifth Avenue in Gallery 454
This appealing pale green bottle was initially blown into a mold with narrow vertical ribs and then inflated so that the ribs appear in very shallow, nearly imperceptible relief. A long, thin trail of dark blue glass spirals around the object, forming an irregular pattern. Additional, shorter trails form a festooned design around the base of the neck, and four small blue blobs dot a larger band created by the spiraling trail. Bottles of this shape and decorated with blobs of glass in contrasting colors were made in Syrian glass factories between the late eleventh and the early thirteenth century. A number of comparable objects and fragments have been excavated in Hama, in west central Syria, and Raqqa, on the bank of the Euphrates River some 150 miles to the northeast. Similar bottles are in museums in Saint Petersburg, Kiev, and Berlin. That a majority of these examples were reportedly found in the Caucasus region or along the coast of the Black Sea suggests that they were part of the well-established glass trade between Syria, northwestern Asia, and eastern Europe

Artwork Details

Object Information
  • Title: Bottle with Blue Trails
  • Date: 12th century
  • Geography: Attributed to probably Syria
  • Medium: Glass; mold-blown with applied decoration
  • Dimensions: H. 6 11/16 in. (17 cm)
    Max. Diam. 3 1/8 in. (7.9 cm)
  • Classification: Glass
  • Credit Line: Purchase, Friends of Islamic Art Gifts, 2005
  • Object Number: 2005.318
  • Curatorial Department: Islamic Art

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Long-Necked Bottle, Glass, colorless with green tinge; blown, blown applied foot, applied decoration, enameled, and gilded
Long-Necked Bottle
first half 14th century
Bottle with Spiraled and Zigzag Trails, Glass, colorless; blown, applied ring foot, applied blue decoration
Bottle with Spiraled and Zigzag Trails
13th century
Vase with Handles, Glass, colorless with brown tinge; blown, folded foot, applied handles, enameled and gilded
Vase with Handles
second half 14th century
Beaker with Fish Motifs, Glass, colorless with yellow tinge; blown, applied ring foot, enameled and gilded
Beaker with Fish Motifs
13th–14th century

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