A fragmentary Fatimid lustre pottery Jar Egypt, 11th Century
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A fragmentary Fatimid lustre pottery Jar
Egypt, 11th Century
of baluster form with stepped shoulder, slightly tapering cylindrical neck and everted mouth, decorated in golden olive lustre with a wide frieze of palmettes containing scrolling palmette motifs, the interspaces with standing birds amidst foliate vine, the shoulder with a band of stripes, the neck with a frieze of dot and circle motif, the fragments joined with plaster
31 cm. high
Estimate:
£15,000 - 20,000
€18,000 - 23,000
US$ 23,000 - 30,000

Footnotes

  • Fatimid lustreware represents one of the highpoints of the technique over its long and varied history. Many of the names of the potters are recorded and the wares are characterized by the use of a frit body. The designs demonstrate a free hand in comparison to the abstract stylized designs of Abbasid lustrewares, evident in the loose palmette designs on our jar.

    The very first piece of Fatimid lustre to have been published in 1910 is a jar of the same form as our example, formerly in the D.K. Kelikian Collection, Paris and now in the Al-Sabah Collection (see Watson, O., Ceramics from Islamic Lands, London, 2004, cat. Ja. 6, p. 279). Jars of this shape were not uncommon among Fatimid lustrewares, but few survive intact (for examples see Lane, A. Early Islamic Pottery: Mesopotamia, Egypt and Persia, 1947, pl. 24; Philon, H.Early Islamic Ceramics: Ninth to Twelfth Centuries, Benaki Museum, Athens, 1980, fig. 559).

Category: Islamic and Oriental Art / Islamic and Indian Art

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Matthew Thomas Bonhams
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Specialist - Islamic and Indian Art