Rare Islamic ewer expected to fetch over $5 million
- A 1,000-year-old carved rock crystal ewer, one of only seven known surviving examples, will be offered for auction next month at Christie's Islamic art sale and is expected to fetch over 3 million pounds ($5.3 million).
The auctioneer said the ewer was made for the court of the Fatimid rulers of Cairo in the late 10th or early 11th century, and has been embellished in enameled gold mounts made in 1854 by a French silversmith.
The ewer is the same one that came up for auction in Britain in January this year and fetched 220,000 pounds, or more than one thousand times its pre-sale estimate.
It was catalogued then as a 19th century French claret jug and valued at 100-200 pounds, but experts said they believed it was in fact an extremely rare ewer from the Fatimid dynasty which ruled parts of northern Africa and the Middle East in the 10th-12th centuries.
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The auctioneer said the ewer was made for the court of the Fatimid rulers of Cairo in the late 10th or early 11th century, and has been embellished in enameled gold mounts made in 1854 by a French silversmith.
The ewer is the same one that came up for auction in Britain in January this year and fetched 220,000 pounds, or more than one thousand times its pre-sale estimate.
It was catalogued then as a 19th century French claret jug and valued at 100-200 pounds, but experts said they believed it was in fact an extremely rare ewer from the Fatimid dynasty which ruled parts of northern Africa and the Middle East in the 10th-12th centuries.