A flask of Islamic style

Back to Time Period
A flask of Islamic style

During the excavation of a stone-lined pit in Trichay Street, on the site of the Guildhall Shopping Centre in 1972, this extraordinary example of 16th- or early 17th-century glass was recovered. In an English context it is highly unusual, the only comparable pieces being two similar but more fragmentary examples from London and a vessel from Dartington Hall, also in the museum's collections. The vessel was studied and published by Robert Charleston of the Victoria and Albert Museum, the foremost authority on such glass. He concluded that it was certainly foreign, and perhaps of Spanish manufacture, since the unusual gourd shape of the body, pinched neck and paired handles were reminiscent of Islamic glass.

Acknowledgments: RAM Museum Exeter Archaeology

Pinit
Share on Facebook