The exquisite mystery of Mughal glass

A new book documents 200 objects made about 300 years ago: bottles, ewers, hookah bases; some gilded, others studded with gems. Take a look.

In a Mughal garden filled with flowers, a man pours wine into delicate glasses from bottles of various shapes.

That’s the untitled painting seen at right, by Bichitr, court artist to the 17th-century Mughal emperors Jahangir and Shah Jahan. Glass can often be seen glinting, in Mughal art from this time. There are decorative wine bottles, hookah bases, bowls, dishes, some of them covered in gold paint or encrusted with precious stones.

Glassware, at this time, was a status symbol.

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This type of bell-shaped hookah base sought to imitate, in glass, the traditional kundan technique of setting stones in precious metal. In the absence of metal, the base for the gemstones, here, consists of strips of white enamel covered in gold paint and gold foil.

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Spittoon; Awadh or Bengal

Currently at Dar al-Athar al-Islamiyyah, Kuwait

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Spittoons were often elaborately crafted; it was one way to make their contents and their presence less unsavoury. With paan-chewing rampant in this era, they would have been placed on terraces, beside hookahs, and near seating areas indoors and outdoors. Perhaps to better conceal their contents, most Mughal-era spittoons were usually fashioned from cobalt-blue or emerald-green glass.

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Ewer; Awadh or Bengal

Currently at the British Museum, London

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This ewer stands nearly 12 inches high and about 9 inches across, from outer handle edge to tip of spout, making it the largest artefact featured in Desjardins’s book.

The way its five separate components — body, lid, s-shaped handle, spout and base — have been fitted together is considered a technical marvel.

The blue glass painted with gold, and the classical shape of the ewer, stamp it as a Mughal artefact: the curved spout, tall neck, and crescent-shaped top are a design that dates to 14th-century Turkey.

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Grenade-shaped hookah; Awadh or Bengal

Currently at the Salar Jung Museum, Hyderabad

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The shape is said to have been inspired by the coconut. This hookah base was made from emerald-green glass and decorated in the reverse-gilt technique, in which layers of gold paint are worked onto the almost-finished product. Paintings from the early years of Jahangir’s reign (r. 1605-1627) often show him using a handheld version of the grenade- or coconut-shaped base.

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Rosewater sprinkler; Northern India

Currently at Museum Kunstpalast, Dusseldorf

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Rays of gold radiate from a red flower and eight green leaves, each element edged in gold paint. More hand-painted leaves, and a red rose, adorn the neck and sides. A fine band of blue leaves decorates the base of the neck; the colour theme is reflected in similar adornments on the base — some so delicate, they would be easy to miss. The tooled, uneven rim offers more evidence of the handcrafting. Bottles like this one were typically used to sprinkle rosewater on guests, in a gesture of welcome.