The PERSIAN GLASS of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries is, as a whole, thin and transparent, either simply blown or in part moulded. In spite of the purely Oriental character of the outlines of this glass, the influence of Venetian methods in the preparation and modes of working is in most cases apparent. As I have said, it would be out of the question to treat of this later Oriental glass, little of which is probably earlier than the seventeenth century, before we had acquired some knowledge of the renaissance glass of Italy. [Illustration: _PLATE XLVI_ GLASS Of PERSIAN TYPE, FROM A TOMB AT BAKU VINCENT ROBINSON COLLECTION] Whether Timur or his successors succeeded in establishing the Syrian glass industry in the Khanates of Turkestan we do not know. There is a vague tradition that in the fifteenth century the glass of Samarkand was the finest in the East. It is, however, to a much later time that the earliest specimens of what I may call the Veneto-Persian family of glass belong—to the time of the Sufi dynasty in Persia and to that of the Moguls in Northern India. Of Persian glass there indeed still exist a few rare examples which may perhaps date from an earlier time. I have already referred (p. 172) to the little drinking-bowl of honey-coloured glass in the British Museum decorated with enamels of good quality—turquoise, red and white (Plate XXVII. 1). The figure of an angel upon it is thoroughly Persian in character; not only in the enamels, but in the horny quality of the honey-coloured metal, this little bowl closely resembles the spherical lamp ornament mentioned on p. 156, that has very properly been placed beside it on the shelf of the Museum. Among the few pieces of later Oriental glass in the Slade collection is a small covered bowl, probably of Persian origin, with a formal design of iris and other flowers. In spite of the somewhat modern air of this bowl, due perhaps to the solid and rather crude gilding, the thick, semi-transparent enamels, blue and pale green, take us back to the earlier Saracenic work. But such examples are quite exceptional. As a rule, on the glass brought back from Persia—there is quite a large collection at South Kensington and a few choice pieces in the British Museum—the enamelling, if present at all, is of the poorest description—it belongs essentially to our ‘painted’ class. This enamelled decoration, as on some little bottles at South Kensington, appears to be but a rude imitation of the floral patterns that we see, for example, on the lacquered bindings of Persian books.