R - Metropolitan Museum of Art

24. The band of slightly beveled lozenges
on this large, handled cup, which
resembles a Roman Imperial skyphos, is
bordered at top and bottom by an angular
molding. Contoured to exclude the handle
with its thumbstop from the decorative
band, this molding is reminiscent in form
and function of that on the opaque
turquoise lobed bowl in San Marco. The
base of this cup is also relief-cut, containing
a slightly concave protruding disc at
its center circumscribed by two angular
moldings arranged concentrically around
it. A similar decoration is to be seen on a
flat fragment found in Samarra. The cup
has acquired a spectacular iridescence.
25. The walls of this spherical vessel are
decorated with two staggered rows of
ten discs, each with a raised dot, a motif
found in Samarra. The ten petals that radiate
from an identical disc on the bottom
of this object are similar in form to the lozenges
on the handled cup (no. 24) except
that each petal here supports a smaller
version of itself. A similar convention
occurs on a fragment found in Samarra
and on the feet and interstitial triangles
on the green cosmetic bottle (no. 23).
At this stage of research, these objects
cannot be ascribed with any degree of
certainty to a particular production center.
However, because of certain affinities between
them and the fact that they have
ninth- or tenth-century parallels in common,
it appears that they were executed
sometime within that two-hundred-year
period.
24
25 27
26