Bowl with Bird and Flowers
10th-11th century
Description
The decoration on the interior of this vessel is characteristic of slip-painted wares now generally attributed to workshops in a region south of the Caspian Sea. Typically, as here, the design of these bowls is dominated by a single large, leftward-facing bird with distended belly, elaborately crested head, and two-colored, bifurcated tail. Birds and surrounding flowers are often outlined in a darker color that may be topped with tiny white dots; white dots also accent dark spots on the bird’s body. Off-white slip and green-tinged glaze completely coat the interior of this bowl. On the exterior, the slip only patchily covers the walls, and the glaze is restricted to the area around the rim. The concave base is uncoated. The bowl has been reassembled from about ten fragments, with plaster replacing losses in the lower left quadrant of the center, and it retains earlier and rather awkward overpainting of the bird’s lower belly and legs.
Dimensions
8.7 x 23.8 cm (3 7/16 x 9 3/8 in.)
Provenance
[Mansour Gallery, London, 1971], sold; to Stanford and Norma Jean Calderwood, Belmont, MA (1971-2002), gift; to Harvard Art Museums, 2002.
Related Artworks
View MoreTerracotta
14th century BCEMycenaeanHard-paste porcelain with polychrome and gilded decoration.
19th centuryGermanTerracotta
6th century BCELydianStoneware with incised decoration under celadon glaze
12th centuryKoreanColorless glass
1st-2nd century CERomanMetal
BritishGray earthenware with cord-impressed decoration
10th-8th century BCEChineseCizhou-type cut-glaze ware: light gray stoneware with dark brown glaze, the decoration cut into the glaze before firing to reveal the light gray body, the revealed body clay dressed with white glaze in localized areas
13th-14th centuryChineseSilver
17th centuryBritishTerracotta
7th century BCEEtruscan