Enamelled bottle

From the end of the 12th century until the fifteenth century glass was painted with decorations resembling those found on contemporary ceramics or inlaid in silver on copper vessels. The allure of the gold and blue pigments, attained through painting crushed coloured glass on blown objects and then firing them, took precedence over the translucency of the glass. The earliest wares of this type were probably made in Syria, but Egypt became a major producer by the fourteenth century. This bottle was probably made in Syria around 1260 A.D. and found its way to China probably in the baggage trains of Muslim merchants plying their trade along the Silk Route. It was discovered in a mosque in Shanxi province along with two other similarly decorated glass vessels in the ROM's collection. Muslim traders founded colonies across China to export silk and other goods to the Near East. The Arabic inscription reads: "Glory to our Master, the Sultan, the King, the Ruler, the Warrior." Similar vessels have inscriptions datable to c. 1250.