Oliver White
Head of Department
Lot 28
An Abbasid lustre painted pottery Bowl Mesopotamia, 9th Century
23 April 2013, 10:30 BST
London, New Bond Street£8,000 - £10,000
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An Abbasid lustre painted pottery Bowl
Mesopotamia, 9th Century
Mesopotamia, 9th Century
of shallow rounded form on a short foot with everted rim, decorated in brown and ochre with a flowerhead flanked by two large foliate motifs and two stylised palmettes emanating from a stem at the rim, surrounded by four circular rocks, the palmettes and two of the rocks filled with a repeat circle design, the stem and two of the rocks filled with a hatched design, the reverse with four stylised flower heads
21.5cm. diam.
21.5cm. diam.
Footnotes
Provenance: acquired from Ernst J. Grube, 7th April 1976.
From a note written on this very bowl by Prof. Ernst J. Grube, "Lustre painting, one of the glories of Islamic pottery was an invention of the Abbasid court atelier of Baghdad. Samarra, heir to the ceramic tradition of Baghdad produced lustre-painted wares of great variety but few well preserved pieces have survived.
This bowl in good condition and of great beauty in design is an exceptionally fine example of an early type which still uses at least a semblance of polychrome lustre pigments. The design consists of what has aptly been called a 'palmette tree', directly derived from the traditions of Sassanian art.".
This bowl compares well with others of the type to have survived. For the type, and a very similar piece, see Arthur Lane, Early Islamic Pottery, London 1966, pl. 10; and E. Grube, The Keir Collection: Islamic Pottery, London 1976, no. 15.