A GLASS CHALICE WITH ENAMEL & GILT DECORATED CROSS, PROBABLY MEDIEVAL

拍品描述

A GLASS CHALICE WITH ENAMEL AND GILT DECORATED CROSS, PROBABLY MEDIEVAL Of footed beaker form, the deep cup rising from a short stem and applied disc foot to flaring sides and an everted rim, blown in pale greenish colourless metal now bearing a dense silvery iridescence across the surface from long burial. The body is divided by two horizontal bands in gilt edged with red enamel, framing an upper register that carries the principal decoration and a lower register filled with a lattice of red enamel lines, the intersections marked by dark enamel dots. The foot is encircled by further bands of red and gilt at the junction with the stem. The upper register carries three principal motifs disposed around the circumference: a Latin cross with flared terminals rendered in gilt and outlined in red, a lozenge enclosing a smaller lozenge and central roundel in gilt, blue and red, and between them a slender branching motif resembling a stylised tree or sprig. The field around these devices is scattered with red and dark enamel dots arranged as paired roundels. The cross identifies the vessel as a Christian liturgical object, and its form, with squared expanded terminals, is of a type current across the medieval Mediterranean and Near East. The lozenge device, set on the diagonal and centred on a roundel, belongs to a wider repertoire of geometric ornament shared between Byzantine, Crusader and early Islamic enamelled glass, while the lattice of the lower register recalls the diaper grounds found on enamelled and gilded glass of the eastern Mediterranean. Enamelled and gilded glass was among the most technically demanding products of the medieval glassworker, requiring a second firing at carefully controlled temperatures to fuse the pigments and gold to the vessel wall without collapsing the blown form. The technique is associated above all with the workshops of Syria and Egypt from the twelfth to the fourteenth century, and with their Byzantine and Venetian counterparts, where such vessels were produced for ecclesiastical, courtly and diplomatic use. Enamelled glass passed readily between Christian and Islamic patrons, and Christian liturgical vessels in this medium are recorded in church treasuries across Europe, often preserved as relics of the Crusader east. The heavy iridescence on the present cup is consistent with prolonged burial, and the survival of the enamel and gilding in legible condition is itself notable for a vessel of this fragility. The chalice form, with its tall flaring cup and disc foot, is well suited to liturgical use, and the explicit presence of the cross places this example within the small surviving corpus of medieval enamelled glass made for, or adapted to, Christian devotional purposes. The accompanying lozenge and sprig motifs sit comfortably within the shared decorative vocabulary of the medieval Levant, where workshops served patrons of more than one confession. This vessel exemplifies the meeting of high glassworking technique and Christian liturgical function in the medieval Mediterranean, where the enamelled and gilded chalice stood at the intersection of luxury craft, devotional use and cross-cultural exchange. Its survival, with the cross and geometric ornament intact beneath a heavy iridescent weathering, places it among the rarer witnesses to that tradition. Height: 12.5cm

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