A Fatimid carved rock crystal bottle, Egypt, late 10th-early 11th century

Rock crystal, from which this flask was carved, is the purest form of quartz, and is renowned for both its hardness and clarity. It was associated with air and water by the polymath al-Biruni (973-1048 AD), and its translucency was so admired that it was sometimes known as Busaq al-qamar or “Spittle of the Moon” (Julian Raby, Sotheby’s Geneva Sale Catalogue, 25 June 1985, lot 187). 

This rare vessel belongs to a small group of rock crystals of similar size and related form. Their original function was most likely as containers for perfume, though many found their way into European church treasuries and were adapted as reliquaries for the bones of Christian saints.

Church inventories and inscriptions on a few pieces allow us to build a picture of their date of production and dispersal. Produced during the heyday of Fatimid power in the late tenth-early eleventh century, they were then scattered during the breakdown of law and order in Cairo between 1061 and 1069 and the looting of the royal treasury by Turkish insurgents (R. Pinder-Wilson, in B. Robinson, (ed.), Islamic Art in the Keir Collection, London, 1988, p.289).

The extent of this vast treasure is documented by the historian al-Maqrizi, who mentions rock crystal in abundance, and the Persian traveller Nasir-i Khusrau who describes seeing rock crystal being worked in the lamp market in Cairo on visits to the city between 1046 and 1050 (ibid, p.189). The existence of a royal workshop is affirmed by the fabulous rock crystal ewers in the Treasury of St Marco, Venice, and The Palazzo Pitti, Florence, as well as the crescent-shaped piece in the Germanisches Museum, Nuremberg, all of which bear caliphal inscriptions (ibid, p.290; Contadini 1998, figs.15-17, pp.18-19). Many of the smaller items, such as the present lot, must have been used by ladies of the harem for cosmetic purposes.