Cup with a Poem on Wine

Two Vessels Inscribed with a Poem on Wine (MMA 64.133.2 and British Museum ME OA 1938.11-12.1)

These sophisticated vessels, inscribed with verses inviting one to drink, echo the close connection between wine drinking and literature in upper-class social practice of the medieval Islamic period. Drinking parties of the cultured elite were accompanied by the recitation of poems, music, and, sometimes, dancing, a tradition carried on uninterrupted from the pre-Islamic period and practiced by the Seljuq sultans and their entourages, as well as by the urban elite.[3] Although these activities were conceived of in the Seljuq period as predominantly leisurely, albeit recalling the intellectual and feasting abilities expected of the ruling classes, they can also be seen as the legacy of ceremonies associated with kingship and investiture in pre-Islamic Central Asia and Zoroastrian Iran.[4]

The verses inscribed on the silver cup (MMA 64.133.2) start with an exhortation to drink and end with an urging to surrender to the excesses of drunkenness. They are drawn from the diwan, or collection of poems, of Ibn Sukkara al-Hashimi, a satirical poet who lived in Baghdad in the second half of the tenth century (d. 995). He was an exponent of mujun, a genre of poetry developed in Basra and Baghdad at the end of the ninth century that celebrated a lustful and licentious way of life.[5] The inscription is closely connected to the peculiar aesthetic of this earlier poetic genre, which was no longer practiced in the eleventh century but still well known, owing to the fact that it was included in a famous anthology compiled by al-Tha‘alibi (d. 1038).[6]

The poem inscribed on the gold cup (British Museum ME OA 1938.11-12.1) expresses a quieter invitation to drink, and it praises wine with metaphorical comparisons—to the sun; to Chinese silk; to a stream flowing from a source—that underscore its powerful, sensual, and life-giving qualities. Like those of Ibn Sukkara, these verses were composed by a tenth-century poet, Ibn al-Tammar al-Wasiti, and were included in al-Tha‘alibi’s anthology.[7] Whatever the reason for this coincidence, it may speak to the ways in which poetry circulated outside of elite circles, although we cannot be sure whether the engravers transcribed the poems directly from this or another anthology or knew them by oral transmission. It has been suggested that diwans were present in ceramic workshops so that verses might be selected for
inscribing onto mina’i objects.[8]

The function of the two cups as vessels for wine is made clear not only by their inscriptions but also by their shape. The straight, flaring sides and narrow, flat base of the silver cup correspond to bowls depicted in symposium scenes of the eleventh and twelfth centuries, such as cat. 17 in this volume (MMA 67.117).[9] The hemispheric shape of the gold cup is long-standing, found, for instance, in Central Asian stone babas (anthropomorphic commemorative figures of the Early Turkish Period; see cat. 190 in this volume [State Museum of the State Cultural Center of Turkmenistan, Ashgabat (ÖWS-AH 4849]) and Sogdian wall paintings.[10]

The cups’ precious materials and sophisticated workmanship suggest an elite setting. The fire-gilding on the interior of the silver cup resulted in a beautiful pale gold color that would have shimmered in the light of oil lamps and exalted the wine contained therein.[11] The letters and scrolls engraved on its exterior—below the rim, an elegant kufic with foliated endings, set against a background of vegetal scrolls; and above the base, a repeated pattern of palmettes—are emphasized by black outlines, and stand out even more against the minutely scaled background pattern. The letters on the gold cup, in a foliated kufic, are similarly highlighted, with the variation of displaying a pointed background. In both cases the verses could be easily read, if not recited from memory.

Martina Rugiadi in [Canby, Beyazit, and Rugiadi 2016]

Footnotes:

3. Both silver vessels and the drinking of wine were officially forbidden by religious law, despite their use and practice in private; see Leoni in Masterpieces from the Department of Islamic Art in The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Exh. cat., The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 2011. Catalogue edited by Maryam D. Ekhtiar, Priscilla P. Soucek, Sheila R. Canby, and Navina Najat Haidar. New York, 2011, p. 127, no. 83.

4. Melikian-Chirvani, A[ssadullah] S[ouren]. “The Iranian Bazm in Early Persian Sources.” Res Orientales 4 [Banquets d’Orient] (1992), pp. 95–120.

5. Rowson, E. K. “Ibn Sukkara al-Hashimı (d. 385/995).” In Encyclopedia of Arabic Literature, edited by Julie Scott Meisami and Paul Starkey, vol. 1, pp. 376–77. London and New York, 1998; Rowson, E. K. “Mujun.” In Encyclopedia of Arabic Literature, edited by Julie Scott Meisami and Paul Starkey, vol. 2, pp. 546–48. London and New York, 1998. His diwan has not come down to us, but this poem, among others, was quoted by al-Tha‘alibi (see note 6 below).

6. Abu Mansur al-Tha‘alibi (d. 1038), a litterateur from Nishapur, praised Ibn Sukkara’s for his provocative, witty spirit and literary skill (see note 7 below).

7. See Al-Tha‘alibi , Abu Mansur. Ibn Sukkara al Hashimi and others from the Yatima al Dahr of Abu Mansur al Tha‘alibi, translated by Arthur Wormhoudt, William Penn College 1982, pp. 35–36. The cup is part of a hoard, allegedly found at Nihavand, which possibly belonged to an otherwise unknown courtier, Abu Shuja’ Inju Takin, as the inscription on a buckle from the same assemblage may suggest (Gray, Basil. “A Seljuq Hoard from Persia.” The British Museum Quarterly 13, no. 3 (September 1939), pp. 73–79, pls. 32–33; Ward, Rachel [M]. Islamic Metalwork. London, 1993, p. 54).

8. Abdullah Ghouchani, quoted in Blair, Sheila S. “A Brief Biography of Abu Zayd.” Muqarnas 25 [Frontiers of Islamic Art and Architecture: Essays in Celebration of Oleg Grabar’s Eightieth Birthday, edited by Gülru Necipoglu and Julia Bailey] (2008), pp. 162–63.

9. For similarly shaped silver vessels, see the hoard of objects found at Hamadan (Pope, Arthur Upham, and Phyllis Ackerman, eds. A Survey of Persian Art from Prehistoric Times to the Present. London and New York, 1938–39, vol. 6, pl. 1346C).

10. Hemispherical footed cups and cups of closed shape are also known from the babas; see Stark, Sören. Die Alttürkenzeit in Mittel-und Zentralasien: Archäologische und historische Studien. Nomaden und Sesshafte, 6. 2006. Wiesbaden, 2008, pp. 131–35, figs. 3c, 41a, 93d, 94a, e. For a baba without a cup, see cat. 190 in this volume [State Museum of the State Cultural Center of Turkmenistan, Ashgabat (ÖWS-AH 4849)]. A comparable gold bowl, showing roundels with lions and an eight-petaled cavetto encircling a medallion with three hares joined at the ears, is in the Reza Abbasi Museum, Tehran (2618).

11. According to Jean-François de Lapérouse, Conservator, Department of Objects Conservation, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, the process involves an amalgam of gold and mercury.


Cup

This cup belongs to a group of silver vessels whose production peaked in Iran under the Buyids and the Seljuqs.[2] Used by nobles at court, or carried by high-rank militaries during their campaigns,[3] vessels like this were often part of larger sets of tableware. This cup shares several features with a silverware set, now in Tehran, that bears the name of the amir Abu’l ‘Abbas Valkin ibn Harun, and may once have been part of a similar group.[4] In addition to the shape—characterized by straight, flaring sides and a narrow base—the cup shares these vessels’ decoration, which consists of an epigraphic band located right beneath the rim. In the present example the inscription is engraved on the exterior in foliated kufic, a style that also appears on a group of epigraphic ceramic wares produced in northeastern Iran between the tenth and eleventh centuries.[5] Vessels of this type are distinguished by inscriptions framed by black paste, which serves to outline the inscriptions as well as to create a bolder aesthetic. Here a second, narrower band with vegetal arabesques runs around the base, also outlined in black.

The verses implicitly suggest that the cup was used for wine. Bacchic-style verses like these are also found on a golden bowl that was part of a hoard found near Hamadan,[6] indicating that the practice of drinking wine from precious vessels, which was common in pre-Islamic times, continued in the Islamic period.

According to a prophetic tradition, Muslims are forbidden to use gold and silver vessels for eating and drinking, a prohibition that is further confirmed in a twelfth-century encyclopedic work that devotes an entire chapter to licit and illicit uses of gold and silver wares.[7] Yet the material evidence provided by this and other vessels, along with many references contained in sources,[8] demonstrate that actual practice often contradicted well established prescriptions.

Francesca Leoni in [Ekhtiar, Soucek, Canby, and Haidar 2011]

Footnotes:

2. Superb examples produced under these dynasties include a gold jug with repoussé decoration inscribed with the name of the Buyid ruler ‘Izz al-Daula Bakhtiyar ibn Mu‘izz al-Daula (r. 967–78), now in the Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, Washington, D.C. (no. 43.1); reproduced in Pope 1938, vol. 6, pl. 1343. See also Marshak, Boris I. Silberschätze des Orients: Metallkunst des 3.–13. Jahrhundert und ihre Kontinuität. Leipzig, 1986, pl. 146.

3. Ferrier 1989, p. 171.

4. The objects, currently held in the Iran Bastan Museum, Tehran, are reproduced in Pope 1938, vol. 6, pls. 1345–46. This and other hoards are discussed in Ferrier 1989, pp. 171–74, figs. 1–2 and 6–7; and Ward 1993, pp. 53–55.

5. Baer 1983, p. 191.

6. British Museum, London (no. 1939.11-12). See Ward 1993, p. 54, and fig. 38.

7. Quoted in Melikian-Chirvani, A[ssadullah] S[ouren]. "Essais sur la sociologie de l’art islamique—L’argenterie et la féodalité dans l’Iran mediéval." In Art et société dans le monde iranien, edited by Chahryar Adle, pp. 143–76. Paris, 1982, esp. pp. 158–59.

8. The Kitab al-Aghani refers to the gold cups used by the Umayyad al-Walid II in his drinking parties (quoted in Baer 1983, p. 103 n. 235). In his Siyasatnama, the Seljuk vizier Nizam al-Mulk records their use during a banquet of military officials (Nizam al-Mulk.Siasset namèh, traité de gouvernement. Edited and translated by Charles Scheffer. 3 vols. Paris, 1891–97, vol. 3, p. 190).

Inscription: Arabic inscription in kufic script below the exterior rim:
اشرب فلليوم فضل لو علمت به / بادرت باللهو واستعجلت بالطرب //
]ورد الخدود، وورد الروض قد جمعا / والغيم مبتسم، والشمس في
الحجب[ // لاتحبس الكاس واشربها مشعشعة / حتی تموت بها موتا بلا
سبب
Drink! For this day has a special boon, which if you
had known about it / You would have hurried up with
entertainment and hastened with rapture! // [Rosy
cheeks, garden roses cut / Smiles are misty and the
sun is veiled] // Don’t hold the cup back, but drink it
diluted, until you die from it (dead) without reason.

Inscription read and translated by Abdullah Ghouchani, 2011.

The poem is from Ibn Sukkara al-Hāshimī and appears in Abu Mansur al-Tha‘ālibī, Yatīmat al-Dah wa ‘Asratu Ahli al-‘Asr. Ed. Muhammad Muhyi al-Din Abdul-Hamid, Dar al-Sa’ada publication, Cairo, 1956, vol. 3, p. 19.

[ Nasli M. Heeramaneck, New York, until 1964; sold to MMA]

New York. The Hagop Kevorkian Special Exhibitions Gallery, The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "The Nature of Islamic Ornament Part I: Calligraphy," February 26–June 28, 1998, no catalogue.

New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Balcony Calligraphy Exhibition," June 1–October 26, 2009, no catalogue.

New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Court and Cosmos: The Great Age of the Seljuqs," April 25–July 24, 2016, no. 56.

Baer, Eva. Metalwork in Medieval Islamic Art. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1983. pp. 107, 112, ill. fig. 86 (b/w).

Ferrier, Ronald W., ed. The Arts of Persia. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989. pp. 171–74, (related).

Ward, Rachel. Islamic Metalwork. London: British Museum Press, 1993. pp. 53–55, (related).

Ekhtiar, Maryam, Priscilla P. Soucek, Sheila R. Canby, and Navina Haidar, ed. Masterpieces from the Department of Islamic Art in The Metropolitan Museum of Art. 1st ed. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2011. no. 83, pp. 88, 127, ill. p. 127 (color).

Komaroff, Linda, ed. Dining with the Sultan : The Fine Art of Feasting. Los Angeles; New York: Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 2023. cat. 5, p. 136, ill.

Canby, Sheila R., Deniz Beyazit, and Martina Rugiadi. "The Great Age of the Seljuqs." In Court and Cosmos. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2016. no. 56, pp. 127–28, ill. p. 127 (color).

Ekhtiar, Maryam. How to Read Islamic Calligraphy. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2018. no. 30, pp. 118–19, ill. p. 118.