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Collections

Dish with Multiple Compartments8th or 9th century

Not on view
Square ceramic tile with green glaze, featuring a central circular boss surrounded by eight scalloped rosettes in low relief against a stippled ground, framed by a twisted rope border
Ceramic tray with green glaze, square form set on corner-placed feet, decorated with a textured ground, a central circular well, and six lobed petal-shaped depressions arranged symmetrically; aged surface shows areas of exposed clay beneath the mottled glaze.

Unknown, Dish with Multiple Compartments, 8th or 9th century, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, The Madina Collection of Islamic Art, gift of Camilla Chandler Frost, photo © Museum Associates/LACMA

Title
Dish with Multiple Compartments
Place Made
Possibly Egypt, Iran, or Iraq
Date Made
8th or 9th century
Medium
Earthenware, molded and glazed
Dimensions
1 1/2 x 7 x 7 in. (3.81 x 17.78 x 17.78 cm)
Credit Line
The Madina Collection of Islamic Art, gift of Camilla Chandler Frost
Accession Number
M.2002.1.20
Classification
Ceramics
Collecting Area
Art of the Middle East: Islamic
Curatorial Notes

Rare surviving cookbooks provide an idea of the elaborate dishes served by upper-class hosts at fashionable meals in the eighth and ninth centuries. In addition, the culinary texts shed light on possible uses of early Islamic ceramics, including a kind of dish with shallow wells, such as this one, which may have been used to dispense the seasoned salts called for by certain recipes.

Selected Bibliography

  • Lo Terrenal y lo Divino: Arte Islámico siglos VII al XIX Colección del Museo de Arte del Condado de Los Ángeles. Santiago: Centro Cultural La Moneda, 2015.

  • Komaroff, Linda, editor. Dining with the Sultan: The Fine Art of Feasting. Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art; New York: DelMonico Books, 2023.