# The Luck of Edenhall > Unidentified Mamluk-period glass workshop (Syria or Egypt) - Beaker: circa 1350. Case: circa 1400-1500 (V&A catalogue dating). > Canonical HTML: https://iconotheca.com/artworks/mamluk-glass-workshop-syria-egypt/luck-of-edenhall-va/ > Published by Servola Systems GmbH. Last verified: 2026-08-24 ## Tombstone - **Artist:** Unidentified Mamluk-period glass workshop (Syria or Egypt) - **Date:** Beaker: circa 1350. Case: circa 1400-1500 (V&A catalogue dating). - **Medium:** Beaker: free-blown glass, enamelled and gilt. Case: tooled and gilt leather (cuir bouilli technique) over a rigid form, with a hinged or fitted lid. - **Dimensions:** Beaker: 15.8 cm high, 11.1 cm in diameter at the rim (V&A public-facing article). The V&A's own online collections database separately records the beaker's height as 16 cm; the two V&A-authored figures do not exactly agree and this record has not found either flagged as the corrected one. No published dimensions for the case were found in the sources consulted. - **Object type:** Glass - **Period:** Islamic, Mamluk sultanate (beaker); English or French late medieval (case) - **Current location:** Victoria and Albert Museum, London, Medieval and Renaissance Galleries, Room 10a - **Attribution:** disputed ## Summary A translucent amber glass beaker, enamelled and gilt in blue, green, red and white, made somewhere in Mamluk Syria or Egypt around 1350 and fitted, within a century or so of its manufacture, with a tooled leather carrying case that most likely saved its life. By 1677 it belonged to the Musgrave family of Eden Hall in Cumberland, who called it the Luck of Edenhall and attached to it a superstition that the family's fortune depended on the glass never breaking. The superstition, first fully written down in 1791, was carried across Europe by Ludwig Uhland's German ballad and then by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's English translation, making an obscure Cumbrian heirloom into a piece of shared literary folklore.The Musgraves lent the beaker to the Victoria and Albert Museum in 1926, eight years before their own house at Eden Hall was pulled down, and sold it to the museum outright in 1958 for 5,500 pounds, part-funded by the Art Fund and the Pilgrim Trust. It was never sold at public auction; there is no hammer price and no premium to separate, because the transaction was a private purchase negotiated directly with a national museum. Where it was made, exactly how it reached England, and whether its fairy legend has any older root than 18th-century antiquarian invention, remain open questions. ## Provenance Every link carries a grade. `documented` means a cited source supports it, `disputed` means the identification is argued but not established, `unknown` means we have no owner for that span and have not bridged it. - **c. 1350** Manufacture in the Mamluk sultanate (Syria or Egypt) `[documented]` (origin) Made as an enamelled and gilt glass beaker in the Mamluk enamelling tradition. The specific city of manufacture (Syria versus Egypt, and within those, which centre) is not established; this record follows the V&A's own formula, 'Syria or Egypt.' - **c. 1350-1400/1500** Unknown `[unknown]` (gap) No owner, location or transaction is documented for the period between manufacture and the fitting of the leather case, itself dated only broadly to 1400-1500 by the V&A. How and when the beaker left the Mamluk sultanate and reached Europe is not recorded in any source consulted. - **1400/1500-1677** Unknown, presumed already in England or in transit there `[unknown]` (case fitted; gap continues) The leather case was made, on the V&A's dating, sometime in the 15th century, implying the beaker had reached Europe (and probably England) by then, fitted with protective leatherwork of French-or-English (V&A) or specifically Narbonnais (Art Fund) manufacture. No owner is documented for this period, and the beaker's entry into Musgrave family possession specifically is undocumented before 1677. - **by 1677-1926** The Musgrave family of Eden Hall, Cumberland `[documented]` (family ownership, first securely documented) First securely documented, and already named 'the Luck of Edenhall,' in the 1677 will of Sir Philip Musgrave, 2nd Baronet (1607-1678), of Hartley Castle and Eden Hall, a Royalist MP and soldier. The family's superstition that its fortune depended on the glass surviving unbroken is attached to the object by at least the later 18th century, when it was written down in print (1791, 1794). The family's country seat, Eden Hall, was itself sold and the family had moved to London by the early 1900s; the house was demolished in 1934, eight years after the glass had already been sent to South Kensington on loan. - **1926-1958** The Musgrave family (owner) / Victoria and Albert Museum (custodian on loan) `[documented]` (loan) Placed on loan to the Victoria and Albert Museum in 1926, over three decades before its outright sale. Ownership remained with the Musgrave family throughout the loan period. - **1958-present** Victoria and Albert Museum, London `[documented]` (purchase) Purchased by the museum in 1958 for a total of 5,500 pounds, of which the Art Fund (then the National Art Collections Fund) contributed 1,500 pounds; the museum's own credit line additionally names the Pilgrim Trust and several City of London livery companies as contributors to the remainder. This was a private, negotiated purchase from the family, not a public auction sale: there is no lot number, estimate, hammer price or premium to report. The object was formally registered with the museum number C.1 to B-1959, the accession year in the number reflecting registration in 1959, a year after the purchase itself was agreed and funded. ## Open questions - In which city was the beaker actually made? The V&A's own position is 'Syria or Egypt'; more specific claims for Aleppo appear in popular writing but were not found stated by the museum itself. - By what route and in what year did the beaker reach England? The general Mamluk-Venetian luxury glass trade explains how such objects generally arrived in Europe, but nothing documents this specific beaker's specific journey or date of arrival. - Does the fairy-well legend, first found fully written down in 1791, have any older basis, oral or otherwise, or was it substantially assembled by 18th-century antiquarians around an already-old, already-named object? - Was the beaker ever used as a chalice? Secondary reporting describes Glyn Davies's 2010 Burlington Magazine article as challenging this on canon-law grounds, but this record could not obtain the article's full text or evaluate its evidence directly. - Where exactly was the leather case made? The V&A's own catalogue says France or England; the Art Fund's own published account says the Narbonne region of France specifically. The two accounts were not reconciled in this research. - Which member of the Musgrave family conducted the 1958 sale, and what was the family's own stated reason for selling? No source consulted names the seller or states a specific motive; death duties are a plausible general context for such sales in this period but are not documented here as the specific cause. - Is a reported 1729 verse referencing a Duke of Wharton drinking match at Eden Hall in 1721 a genuine early source, and if so what is its correct citation? This record found the claim only in secondary summaries and could not verify it against a primary or scholarly source. ## Sources - [1] Victoria and Albert Museum, 'The Luck of Edenhall: history and legend of a 14th-century glass beaker.' - [2] Victoria and Albert Museum, online collections catalogue, 'The Luck of Edenhall (beaker and case),' museum no. C.1 to B-1959. - [3] Wikipedia, 'Luck of Edenhall.' Tertiary source; flagged for replacement with the Davies 2010 Burlington Magazine article and the V&A's own curatorial file where they can be obtained in full. - [4] Art Fund, 'Goblet ("The Luck of Edenhall").' Published record of the Art Fund's 1958 grant toward the purchase. - [5] Glyn Davies, 'New Light on the Luck of Edenhall,' The Burlington Magazine, vol. 152, no. 1282 (January 2010), pp. 4-7. Citation and abstract consulted via Dialnet; the article's full text could not be obtained for this record and is flagged for the editor to source directly. - [6] Wikimedia Commons, File:Luck_of_Edenhall_VandA_C.1toB-1959_n02.jpg, extended file metadata (licence, photographer, date). - [7] Wikimedia Commons, File:Luck_of_Edenhall_VandA_C.1toB-1959.jpg, extended file metadata. - [8] Wikimedia Commons, File:Luckofedenhall.jpg, extended file metadata. - [9] Wikimedia Commons, File:Luck_of_Edenhall.jpg, extended file metadata. - [10] Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, 'The Luck of Edenhall,' in Ballads and Other Poems (3rd ed., Cambridge: John Owen, 1842), pp. 48-52, via Wikisource. - [11] German Wikipedia, 'Das Gluck von Edenhall.' Tertiary source, used only for Uhland's title and 1834 publication date and Schumann's 1853 setting; flagged for replacement with a scholarly edition of Uhland. - [12] Louis Werner, 'The Luck of Edenhall,' personal research blog, 22 December 2018. Secondary/journalistic source; flagged for replacement wherever it was the sole source for a claim in this record. - [13] 'The Luck of Edenhall (Eden Hall),' folklore source-text compilation citing The Gentleman's Magazine (1791), Hutchinson's History of the County of Cumberland (1794), Ritson's Fairy Tales, Now First Collected (1831) and Keightley's The Fairy Mythology (1833). - [14] Hypnogoria, 'Folklore on Friday: Faery Finds I - The Luck of Edenhall' (2015). Secondary blog citing Rev. William Mounsey's 1791 account and Hutchinson's 1794 History. - [15] Victoria and Albert Museum, online collections catalogue, 'Beaker' (Venetian, Murano, 1519-1558), museum no. 191-1879. - [16] The Metropolitan Museum of Art, collection entry, 'Mosque Lamp of Amir Qawsun,' circa 1329-1335. - [17] The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History, essay 'Enameled and Gilded Glass from Islamic Lands.' - [18] British Museum, Waddesdon Bequest catalogue entry, mosque lamp. - [19] History of Parliament Online, 'MUSGRAVE, Sir Philip, 2nd Bt. (1607-78), of Hartley, Westmld. and Edenhall, Cumb.' - [20] Anthony Trollope, The Small House at Allington (1864), Chapter 1, quoted via Wikisource/Project Gutenberg text. --- Images on this record are public domain or CC0 and are hosted by us. No image on this site is generated or simulated. If you quote this record, quote the provenance grades with it.