Marcus Pilz, “From Baghdad to Cairo: Rock crystal carvings for the Abbasid and Fatimid courts”

Marcus Pilz
Dr Marcus Pilz studied the history of art, German philology, and theology at the Ludwig Maximilians- Universität in Munich. His thesis discussed the history and stylistic development of medieval Islamic rock crystal objects and was the first comprehensive study on this subject. After a year at the Metropolitan Museum of Art as the Hanns Swarzenski and Brigitte Horney Swarzenski Fellow for Medieval Art, he joined the Herzog Anton Ulrich-Museum in Braunschweig, before being appointed as curator at the Kunstsammlungen der Veste Coburg.

From Baghdad to Cairo: Rock crystal carvings for the Abbasid and Fatimid courts
Rock crystal vessels have been an expression of imperial luxury for thousands of years. The difficulty surrounding their production also made them effective tokens that denoted cultural superiority. It is, therefore, not surprising that the Abbasid caliphs adopted this artistic medium as their own, resulting in a flourishing of the technique. Later, this Abbasid tradition formed at the court of the Fatimid caliphs, bringing the production of thin-walled rock crystal vessels to an ultimate peak of technical perfection. Based on an intensive, object-focused study and archaeological findings from recent years, this lecture presents the rock crystal carvings of the Abbasids and Fatimids as part of the broader Mediterranean history of this extraordinary craft, and illustrates its part in the early global trade of luxury goods.