A silver-Inlaid high-tin bronze footed cup, Khurasan, 13th century

of deep rounded form with convex walls supported on a narrow waisted foot with splayed base, incised and inlaid with silver, the body with a register of lobed cartouches enclosing astrological iconography interspersed with strapwork scrolls with split-leaf terminals reserved on a hatched ground, bordered by narrow bands of diamond patterning and scrolling palmette tendrils, the foot decorated with a broad stellar and calligraphic band, the rim with palmette strapwork scrolling within a monumental inscription with human head terminals 

In good overall condition, some losses of silver inlay, high-tin bronze surface typically free from corrosion, as viewed.
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inscriptions

Around the rim:

al-'izz wa al-baqa wa al-madha wa al-thana wa al-birr wa al-'ata wa al-hilm wa al-haya wa al-'ilm wa al-wafa wa al- .... (?) wa al-ghana wa al-lutf wa al-rida wa al-kiyasa wa al-dawla

'Glory and Long-life and Praise and Laudation and Piety and Beneficence and Forbearance and Modesty and Knowledge and Fidelity and ... and Freedom from want and [God's] Grace and Consent and Sagacity and Wealth'

Around the base, repetition of the words:

al-'izz wa al-baqa wa al-thana

'Glory and Long-life and Laudation'

This rare footed cup is typical of the inlaid metalwork that was produced in Ghurid Herat. The astrological motifs around the body of the vessel relate closely to those found on an early-thirteenth-century brass-inlaid ewer formerly in the Nuhad Es-Said Collection (Allan 1982, p.46, no.5) and now in the Museum of Islamic Art, Doha. The famous early-thirteenth-century 'Vaso Vescovali' (Ward 1993, p.20, no.10) displays the same use of strapwork arabesques and human-head calligraphy.

Inscriptions found on the Bobrinski bucket and Tiflis ewer indicate that Herat was the centre of the inlaid metal industry during the Ghurid period. This was to change in the 1220s when Chingiz Khan and his Mongol army invaded Khurasan. Due to this widespread destruction inlaid metalwork production ceased in Herat and moved to western Iran. A fourteenth-century high-tin, silver-inlaid cup of almost identical form is in the British Museum. Although the shape is the same, the decoration of the British Museum example reveals that it was produced post-Mongol invasion due to its use of fleshy arabesques and lotus roundels (ibid. p.95, no.73). A fourteenth-century ceramic goblet of similar proportions, formerly in the Madina Collection, is now in the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA inv. no. M.2002.1.45) which demostrates the production of ceramic wares that derived from an earlier metalwork prototype.