This enameled glass beaker is the largest known example and unique in terms of its decoration. The whole work is a tour de force with the polychrome enameled painting on transparent glass brilliantly capturing an aerial cosmos of soaring natural and mythical birds. The most succinct interpretation for the scene is that it is a visualization of the Sufi poem, The Conference of the Birds, by the Persian poet ʻAṭṭar (c. 1145–1221).

Led by a hoopoe, the birds of the world set out in search of the legendary Simurgh, the king of birds. At the end of a long and arduous journey through seven valleys, each of increasing difficulty, only 30 birds remain. The Simurgh king then reveals that what they have been seeking is within themselves. The journey, thus, is a metaphor for inner transformation. ʻAṭtar’s choice of the number ‘30’ is a clever play-on-words: for ‘Simurgh’ in Persian means ‘thirty [si] birds [murgh]’.