Bowl with Inscription and Birds
10th century
Description
Although painted with apparent dash, the colorful decoration of this bowl is carefully composed. The design is laid out in three registers: an Arabic word meaning “harmony” occupies the middle, and above and below it are long-necked birds with outstretched wings. Like the beginning and end letters of the inscription, the birds’ heads and leaf-like wingtips terminate at the red circular boundary. Freely painted running crescents and a black line enclose the lively composition. Combining Arabic script with birds became popular among potters in the early Islamic era. On this bowl, where inscription and birds are equally stylized and animated, the decorative formula has proved especially felicitous. Most of the black decoration on the bowl is painted in a relatively inert black slip. By contrast, the contour panels are dotted with a black pigment containing chromite, which stains the surrounding glaze light yellow. To date, ceramic vessels with yellow-staining black have been excavated only in Nishapur. The outside of the bowl is undecorated except for the white slip and clear glaze, which has a slight iridescence. The flat base is lightly covered in the slip and partially glazed.
Dimensions
5.8 x 18.8 cm (2 5/16 x 7 3/8 in.)
Provenance
[Hadji Baba Rabbi House of Antiquites, Teheran, 1973], sold; to Stanford and Norma Jean Calderwood, Belmont, MA (1973-2002), gift; to Harvard Art Museums, 2002.
Related Artworks
View MoreCast bronze with gilding
3rd century BCE-3rd century CEChineseTerracotta
GreekEnameled porcelain: porcelain with decoration painted in overglaze polychrome enamels; with overglaze red enamel mark reading "Tongzhi nian zhi" within a double square on the base
19th centuryChineseUnderfired Black Ding ware: porcelaneous white stoneware with brownish green, tea-dust-like glaze. Probably from the kilns at Jianci village, possibly from those at East or West Yanchuan village, Quyang county, Hebei province.
11th-12th centuryChineseHard-paste porcelain with polychrome enamels and gold
18th centuryGermanLight gray stoneware with stamped decoration with traces of natural ash glaze
8th-9th centuryKoreanNorthern black ware of Cizhou type: light gray stoneware with dark brown glaze, the decoration in overglaze iron oxide
12th centuryChineseSilver
19th centuryBritishQingbai ware: porcelain with pale sky-blue glaze
12th-13th centuryChineseAsh-glazed ware: light gray stoneware with thin, intentionally applied brownish green ash glaze over all-over ground of iron-brown slip
14th-15th centuryKoreanGanzhou ware: light gray stoneware, the unglazed exterior with combed and applique decoration, the unglazed neck with beads of pearly white glaze to form the bosses, the interior with russet-surfaced dark brown glaze. From the kilns at Qili Ganzhou, Jiangxi province
13th-14th centuryChineseGray earthenware with cold-painted pigments
2nd century BCEChinese