Projectedly Facetted Elliptical Cup

Collection number	ガ419-2095
Provenance	Iran
Period	Late Sasanian period
Date	6th Century A.D.
Material	Glass
Dimension	L. 15.8 cm
Comment	A mold-blown cup in the shape of a boat, of pa1e green transparent glass. The mouth rim has been ground. The thick sides of the cup have been embossed with twelve oval facets all around the mouth rim of the cup and three on the long axis of the cup, with the one in the middle cut slightly larger to serve as a raised foot. One of the raised facets has been broken and restored , but there is no weathering on the surface of the vessel. Boat-shaped cups in Sasanian glass are extremely rare. The only other known examples are deposited at the Idemitsu Museum of Arts and in a private collection. Conceivably, this piece is a copy in glass of the silver or copper alloy boat-shaped cups reported among artifacts in the central area of the Sasanian Empire in northern Mesopotamia and southwest Iran. It affords us a glimpse of the aesthetic sense of glassworkers in the Sasanian Dynasty and their familiarity with techniques for cutting three-dimensional objects that could not be applied to metallic vessels.
Classification	glass vessel
Keyword	Green,Clear Beautiful Western Asia,Iran Glass Vessel,Cup,Elliptical,Vessel,Based/Legged vessel,Based Pattern,Circle/Ellipse