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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 15 November 2011
During the past five or six years a number of interesting examples of enamelled glass have been sent to Europe from various sites in the nearer East, the principal localities near which they are said to have been found being Damascus, a spot in the neighbourhood of Aleppo, and at Koos and Fostat in Egypt.
One of these, the subject of the present paper, has come into my hands for the British Museum collection, through the liberality of Miss Alice de Rothschild. It is figured in colours in the accompanying Plate XIV. of the size of the original.
page 219 note a Old Oriental Gilt and Enamelled Glass Vessels. Fol. Vienna and London, 1899.Google Scholar
page 220 note a The cup in the Art collections in the Löwenburg at Wilhelmshöhe, near Cassel, resembles more nearly that in the Waddesdon Bequest than do any of the other known goblets of this class. The decoration consists of convivial scenes forming a broad band around it, and the figures have at their sides representations of similar cups. It is figured by Schmoranz (fig. 27 on p. 31), and a portion of the decoration is shown on his Plate XXXIII. From the figure it would seem fairly certain that the construction of the foot is the same as that of the subject of this paper, shown in my fig. I. Schmoranz gives a section of it among those on p. 41 of his work, but I suspect he has omitted to notice the double thickness of the foot, a peculiarity that I have found to be invariable in this class of oriental glass.
page 220 note b The Luck of Edenhall is the subject of a small volume of verse, entitled “The Luck of Edenhall. A modern lay of the olden day. By the Rev. Beilby Porteus, Vicar of Edenhall.” Carlisle, 1856. The frontispiece of this volume is a coloured figure of a cup “from a drawing by the Rev. B. Porteus.” There can be little doubt, however, that it is taken, not from the cup, but from Lysons's figure, to be shortly mentioned. Mr. Porteus in his notes gives what was no doubt the popular theory, that the glass was of Venetian make and intended for a chalice.
The plate in Lysons's, Magna Britannia (Cumberland, p. ccixGoogle Scholar) shows not only the glass, but also the leather case and the sacred monogram on the top, the two first of the real size. The height of the cup itself appears to be 6¾ inches (17·1 cm.). The colours employed in the decoration are blue, white, yellow, and a little red. Lysons's description is as follows:
“The curious ancient glass vessel called the Luck of Edenhall, on the preservation of which, according to popular superstition, the prosperity of that house depends, is well known from the Duke of Wharton's ballad, which begins,
‘God prosper long from being broke
The Luck of Ednihall.’
“It is of a green coloured glass ornamented with foliage, and of different colours in enamel: the case of leather, in which it is kept, is ornamented with scrolls of vine leaves, and on the top are the letters I h c: from which it seems probable that this vessel was originally designed for sacred uses. From the style of the ornaments, it seems to be of as early an age as the beginning of the fifteenth century, probably earlier.”
The leaves on the case may conceivably be intended as vine leaves, but they are simple trefoils of a conventional kind, and it is improbable that there is any reference to a sacred use of the glass intended either in the floral decoration or in the use of the sacred monogram.
page 221 note a Read, , Catalogue of the Waddesdon Bequest, No. 53 and Plate xiv.Google Scholar
page 223 note a Dnia probably stands for Domina.
page 224 note a It is of interest to state that while this short memoir was in course of preparation a London dealer brought to me two other beakers of this class. I have reason to believe that they were found with the one above mentioned, attributed to Saladin, at Damascus. One of these was even more cylindrical than that shown in the coloured plate, and was covered with a simple vermicular diaper in red, not a very attractive specimen. The other was almost precisely of the proportions of the Venetian goblet just described, with a wide mouth and a small base. Both beakers, however, had the peculiar construction of the foot to which attention has been called in the text.
page 226 note a It is perhaps prudent to state here that I am well aware that there are existing forgeries of this class of glass, some of which I have had the advantage of examining; but I have no doubts of the authenticity of this piece.