Bowl10th century

Not on view

Ceramic bowl with wide conical form and small foot ring, off-white exterior with aged patina, interior decorated with plum-brown, red, and yellow leaf and medallion motifs

Ceramic dish with polychrome slip decoration, viewed from above: a central six-petaled rosette in cream and yellow-green surrounded by radiating teardrop and oval forms in orange, cream, and yellow-green against a dark brown ground with fine incised line hatching.

Ceramic bowl with flared walls and low foot ring, cream slip exterior; interior decorated in polychrome with bold leaf and medallion motifs in orange, dark brown, and buff, with fine hatched line detailing.

Ceramic bowl viewed from above, with a cream ground painted in dark brown, terracotta, and buff yellow; a six-petaled rosette radiates from the center, surrounded by large pointed leaf forms and circular medallions filled with fine hatched linework.

Title: Bowl
Place Made: Iran, Nishapur or Uzbekistan, Samarqand
Date Made: 10th century
Medium: Earthenware, underglaze slip-painted
Dimensions: 2 3/4 x 7 3/4 in. (6.99 x 19.69 cm)
Credit Line: The Nasli M. Heeramaneck Collection, gift of Joan Palevsky
Accession Number: M.73.5.186
Classification: Ceramics
Collecting Area: Art of the Middle East: Islamic
Curatorial Notes: In the 1930s and 1940s archaeologists from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, excavated Nishapur, a northeastern Iranian city celebrated in medieval Islamic texts as a center of trade, religious study, and poetry. The team unearthed large quantities of pottery in addition to kilns and wasters (flawed, discarded pots), indicating that Nishapur was also a major center of medieval ceramics production. In subsequent decades, many undocumented pieces, such as this bowl, were sold on the art market as "Nishapur ware." Whether these were actually made in Nishapur, however, is difficult to state with certainty, since technically and stylistically related ceramics were also excavated at Afrasiyab, in modern-day Uzbekistan.
Selected Bibliography: Pal, Pratapaditya, ed. Islamic Art: The Nasli M. Heeramaneck Collection. Los Angeles: Museum Associates, 1973.
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. Beauty and Identity: Islamic Art from the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 2016.

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