This handsome turquoise and black bowl belongs to a type of ceramic commonly known as Raqqa ware. In the nineteenth century the Syrian city of Raqqa became a source of fascination for Europeans who read about it and its famous king, Harun al-Rashid, in The Thousand and One Nights, sparking a demand for ceramics from the site that in turn led a number of dealers to misattribute the provenance of their wares. New research has shown that Raqqa was not the exclusive source for such wares. In fact they were produced elsewhere in Syria as well as in Anatolia and Egypt.