拍品專文
Examples of moulded clear glass ewers of pear-shape form, footless, attributed to 9th century Mesopotamia show similar pinched spouts with applied handles (Stefano Carboni, Glass from Islamic Lands, London, 2001, p.200-1, cat.48b). However, the present ewer has a more elongated neck and a slightly more bulbous body than most examples of this group. It can be paralleled for instance with an early Islamic Syrian olive-green glass ewer in the Bazargan collection. (Helen A. Kordmahini, Glass from the Bazargan Collection, Tehran, 1993, cat.67). Although that example has a rounded mouth, the thick curving handle with bulbous applied extremities shows similarities to the present ewer. The design of the moulding finds a parallel in a small number of earlier Sasanian bowls which are decorated with similar groups of nipped vertical ribs, one of which is in the Corning Museum of Glass (David Whitehouse, Sasanian and Post-Sasanian Glass, New York, 2005, cat.7, p.23). Many of these bowls have been excavated in Iraq. A clear blue glass cup also in the Corning Museum, datable to 4th to 7th century or later can be compared to the present ewer as the slightly curving ribs of the blue body renders with a same overall effect (David Whitehouse, op.cit, cat.9, p.23-4). These elements point toward an early date for this intact ewer, very probably the 8th century.