# The Corning Ewer > Unknown Islamic glass workshop - c. 9th - 11th century AD, most often placed around AD 1000 / the early 10th century > Canonical HTML: https://iconotheca.com/artworks/unknown-islamic-cameo-glass-workshop/corning-ewer-islamic-cameo-glass/ > Published by Servola Systems GmbH. Last verified: 2026-08-27 ## Tombstone - **Artist:** Unknown Islamic glass workshop - **Date:** c. 9th - 11th century AD, most often placed around AD 1000 / the early 10th century - **Medium:** Cameo-cut glass: a colorless glass body cased in transparent light-green glass, blown and then cold-cut in relief - **Dimensions:** Height 16 cm; maximum diameter 9.3 cm - **Object type:** Glass - **Period:** Early Islamic - **Current location:** Corning Museum of Glass, Corning, New York - **Attribution:** disputed ## Summary A pear-shaped glass ewer, 16 centimetres high, cut from a colorless blank cased in transparent light-green glass so that two confronted birds of prey attacking two horned quadrupeds stand out in relief. It is repeatedly described as the finest known and most complete example of Islamic cameo glass, a technique attempted for only about two centuries in the early Islamic world and now represented almost everywhere else by fragments.Where it was made is not settled. It surfaced on the art market in Tehran, entered Edmund de Unger's Keir Collection in England by the mid-1970s, and was bought by the Corning Museum of Glass in 1985. Nothing in that chain, and nothing in the scientific testing done on the glass itself, resolves whether it is Iranian or the product of a Fatimid Egyptian workshop cutting glass in imitation of the rock-crystal ewers made for the Fatimid court in Cairo.Its rarity is real and also part of the problem: because so little cameo glass of this class survives intact, there is no second complete example to check any attribution against, only fragments and one badly damaged sibling in London. ## 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. - **undated** Unknown workshop `[disputed]` (manufacture) Made somewhere in the early Islamic world, c. 9th-11th century. Production center disputed between Iran and Fatimid Egypt (see attribution). No excavation record or archaeological findspot is documented for the object itself. - **-by 1976** Edmund de Unger, Keir Collection, Ham, Surrey, England `[documented]` (acquisition (art market)) Reported in a published review of Whitehouse's 2010 Corning catalogue as acquired by de Unger in Tehran; no bill of sale, dealer name, or excavation record was located. This is a market transaction, not a documented archaeological findspot. In the collection by 1976, when it was lent to The Arts of Islam, Hayward Gallery, London (8 April - 4 July 1976). - **1976-1985** Edmund de Unger, Keir Collection `[documented]` (continued ownership / exhibition) Remained in de Unger's collection following the 1976 Hayward Gallery exhibition until its sale to Corning in 1985. - **1985-present** Corning Museum of Glass, Corning, New York `[documented]` (acquisition (purchase)) Purchased 1985 with funds from the Clara S. Peck Endowment; accession 85.1.1. The transaction mechanism (direct sale from de Unger, a dealer intermediary, or otherwise) is not stated in the sources consulted. ## Exhibitions - The Arts of Islam, Hayward Gallery, London (8 April - 4 July 1976, Arts Council of Great Britain, catalogue eds. Dalu Jones and George Michell), 1976 ## Literature - Whitehouse, David. "The Corning Ewer: A Masterpiece of Islamic Cameo Glass." Journal of Glass Studies 35 (1993): 48-56. - Whitehouse, David, ed. Islamic Glass in the Corning Museum of Glass, vol. 1: Objects with Scratch-Engraved and Wheel-Cut Ornament. Corning, NY: Corning Museum of Glass, 2010. ## Open questions - Where was the ewer made: Iran, a Fatimid Egyptian workshop, or somewhere else? Ultraviolet fluorescence testing matched neither an Egyptian nor an Iranian reference group. - What is its precise date within the 9th-to-11th-century range? No excavated context exists for the object itself, and the one independent scientific dating result available for a close comparandum pulls earlier than the usual stylistic date. - What actually happened at its reported findspot near Tehran? The only documented statement is a market acquisition by a private collector, not an excavation record; whether it was ever excavated at all is unknown. - How did the ewer pass from Edmund de Unger's collection to the Corning Museum of Glass in 1985? No dealer, agent, or sale mechanism is named in the sources consulted. - Does the bird-and-quadruped imagery carry a specific meaning for this object, or is it a stock courtly motif with no documented programme attached? No inscription or commission record survives. - How many complete or near-complete Islamic cameo-glass vessels of this class actually survive worldwide? The sources consulted name only two whole examples (this ewer and the Buckley Ewer) against a wider field of fragments; a fuller census was not attempted for this record. ## Sources - [1] Wikipedia, "Corning Ewer." Tertiary source; flagged for replacement with Whitehouse 1993 and Whitehouse 2010 (sources 2 and 3) wherever a claim can be traced to them directly. - [2] Whitehouse, David. "The Corning Ewer: A Masterpiece of Islamic Cameo Glass." Journal of Glass Studies 35 (1993): 48-56. - [3] Whitehouse, David, ed. Islamic Glass in the Corning Museum of Glass, vol. 1: Objects with Scratch-Engraved and Wheel-Cut Ornament. Corning, NY: Corning Museum of Glass, 2010. - [4] caa.reviews, review of David Whitehouse, Islamic Glass in the Corning Museum of Glass, Vol. 1 (2010), published 2011-07-07. Reviewer's name could not be confirmed from the page as retrieved for this record; flagged for verification. - [5] Corning Museum of Glass, "The Corning Ewer," All About Glass. - [6] Corning Museum of Glass, collection database record for the Corning Ewer (object 26983). Direct access was blocked by the site's bot-verification page during research for this record; details given here are as reported via secondary aggregation and should be checked directly against this record. - [7] Victoria and Albert Museum, "The Buckley Ewer," museum no. C.126-1936. - [8] Bonhams, "An important relief-cut cameo glass ewer, Egypt or Near East, late 10th/early 11th century," sale 30703, lot 21, 22 May 2025. - [9] Wikidata, Q125510316, "The Corning Ewer." Tertiary structured-data source. - [10] Wikimedia Commons, File:The_Corning_Ewer.png, licence and uploader metadata verified directly via the Commons API on 2026-08-27. - [11] Direct visual examination of the lead photograph (File:The_Corning_Ewer.png) for condition (mended cracks) as part of independent verification for this record. - [12] Wikipedia, "Cameo glass." Tertiary source, used only for the general statement that the technique lapsed after Rome and reappeared independently in the Islamic world and, later, in 19th-century France. - [13] Contadini, Anna. "The Cutting Edge: Problems of History, Identification and Technique of Fatimid Rock Crystals," 1999. Cited via secondary reference; publication venue not independently confirmed for this record. - [14] Wikipedia, "Edmund de Unger." Tertiary source, biography of the collector. - [15] The Arts of Islam: Hayward Gallery, 8 April - 4 July 1976. London: Arts Council of Great Britain, 1976 (eds. Dalu Jones and George Michell). Exhibition catalogue; existence and dates confirmed via library and archive catalogue records, contents of the specific entry for this ewer not examined directly. - [16] Pilosi, L., et al. "An Islamic Cameo Glass Fragment in the Metropolitan Museum of Art," 2012, on the Nishapur fragment, accession 40.170.181. - [17] Wikimedia Commons, File:The_Buckley_Ewer.png, licence and uploader metadata verified directly via the Commons API on 2026-08-27. - [18] Wikimedia Commons, File:Rock_crystal_ewer.jpg (Victoria and Albert Museum, museum no. 7904-1862), licence and uploader metadata verified directly via the Commons API on 2026-08-27. - [19] Wikimedia Commons, File:Fatimid_rock_crystal_ewer,_Egypt,_ca._1000,_The_David_Collection,_Copenhagen_(1)_(36012520030).jpg, photo by Richard Mortel, licence and uploader metadata verified directly via the Commons API on 2026-08-27. --- Images on this record are public domain or CC0 and are hosted by us. No image on this site is generated or simulated. 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