Compare with this goblet the cup from the Hope collection that stands near it in the Glass Room. The glass is thicker than in the last example, it is of a slightly greenish tint, and contains a few elongated bubbles. The decoration is in its way masterly: on either side of a throne on which is seated the Virgin with the Child in her lap, stands an angel holding a tall candle; beyond are the figures of St. Peter and St. Paul. As to the style of the decoration, it is to my mind distinctly Western; the figures might be taken from a French missal of the thirteenth century. The _Arte Francisca_ was no doubt coming into favour in Venice at this time, but even in the fourteenth century it was regarded as something exotic, and I doubt if it was as yet practised by Venetian craftsmen who, in the minor arts, long adhered to Byzantine models. When we come to examine the technique of the enamels, we are at once struck with their resemblance to those on the Saracenic glass of the period. We have here the work of one who was master of his craft; above all, the quality of the blue enamel should be noted and compared with that on the Aldrevandini goblet. I think, then, that both the glass and enamel of this cup are the work of Syrian craftsmen, possibly working at Venice, but more probably at the court of one of the Frankish princes who held fiefs in Syria during the thirteenth century,—at that of Bohemond VI. possibly, prince of Antioch and Count of Tripoli, or of his son Bohemond VII., who celebrated his marriage with a noble lady from Champagne only a few years before his expulsion by the Saracens. It was in 1277, under the rule of the former, that the treaty was drawn up that contains the often-quoted—and misquoted—words, ‘_Et si Venitien trait verre brizé de la vile, il est tenuz de payer le dhime._’ What is more likely than that such a goblet may have been made by some Jewish or perhaps Christian glass-worker for a nobleman of this thoroughly French court?[132] Such an origin may help to account for the fact, otherwise somewhat difficult to explain, that this goblet is a unique example of its class. If the Venetians of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries were complete masters of the art of enamel, how comes it that no other example of the art at all comparable in excellence to this glass has come down to us? No one, I think, now believes in the Venetian origin of the _hanap de voirre en façon de Damas_, of the glass vessels _de l’ouvrage de Damas_, or _peintes à la morisque_ mentioned in the inventories of the French princes of the fourteenth century. These were evidently decorated in an Oriental style. We must also remember that before the end of the thirteenth century the Christian rulers were finally driven out of Syria; there was therefore only a brief period during which such a goblet decorated with Christian motives could have been made in the East.