A NEAR EASTERN BROWN COLOURED GLASS BEAKER, PERSIA, CIRCA 5TH-7TH CENTURY A.D.

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A NEAR EASTERN BROWN COLOURED GLASS BEAKER, PERSIA, CIRCA 5TH-7TH CENTURY A.D. Of cylindrical form, the straight walls rising from a flat base to a plain rim, mould-blown in a deep brown metal that reads as translucent amber-red where light passes through the vessel and darkens to aubergine in the thicker areas. The exterior is worked with a continuous relief scheme comprising a broad central register framed by vertical borders of dense pellet-and-notch ornament at either side, with a horizontal band of the same beaded design running along the lower edge. Within the central panel, a schematic figural or foliate composition emerges in low relief, its details softened by weathering. The surface is overlaid throughout with a silvery-gold iridescent film and areas of pitted deposit, the product of long burial, which catches the light unevenly across the raised design. The decorative vocabulary, with its framed panels, beaded borders and mould-impressed motifs, belongs to a well-established tradition of Sasanian and early post-Sasanian mould-blown glass produced across the Iranian plateau and Mesopotamia. Vessels of this type were made by inflating the gather into a two- or three-part mould, the vertical seams of which remain faintly visible on the present beaker at the junctions of the decorative panels. The technique allowed workshops to reproduce complex ornament efficiently while retaining the chromatic depth prized in Sasanian coloured glass. Coloured glass of this saturated brown-to-purple tonality was among the more ambitious achievements of Sasanian and early Islamic glasshouses. Where the more familiar Sasanian production is in clear or pale green metal, deeply coloured vessels required careful control of manganese and iron oxides in the batch and were produced in smaller quantities, often for tablewares intended for elite consumption. Sasanian glass was traded widely, reaching sites from the Mediterranean to the tombs of the Chinese aristocracy under the Northern Dynasties and early Tang, where such vessels were regarded as luxury imports and preserved as prestige goods. The iridescent surface seen here is the characteristic outcome of centuries of burial in a mineral-rich environment, where alkali leaches from the glass and leaves a laminated film that refracts light. This beaker exemplifies the mould-blown, panel-decorated tradition of late Sasanian and early post-Sasanian glassmaking in Persia, in which the technical control required to produce a saturated coloured metal is combined with the workshop economy of moulded relief. Its cylindrical form and framed decorative field place it within a small group of coloured mould-blown drinking vessels that mark the transition between Sasanian production and the glasshouses of the early Islamic period. Dimensions: Height: 5.5cm, Diameter: 6cm

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