- Title
- Bowl
- Date Made
- second quarter of 11th century
- Medium
- Silver, engraved
- Dimensions
- 1 1/4 x 5 3/4 in. (3 x 14.2 cm)
- Accession Number
- M.73.5.149
- Collecting Area
- Art of the Middle East: Islamic
- Curatorial Notes
Although luxury objects from the medieval Islamic world are often assumed to have been made for a royal patron, only a small fraction can be definitively associated with a particular sponsor. This silver bowl, engraved with a sphinxlike creature, is therefore of great importance, since the inscription around its inner rim identifies its patron as the mother of the ruler of Gurgan, a province in the Caspian region of Iran, in the 1030s and early 1040s. This bowl reminds us that royal and elite women were important patrons of art and architecture throughout Islamic history.
The inscription reads, "Glory and fortune and long life and confirmation and stability and assistance from God and power to the noble lady Queen of Earth, mother of Sharaf al-Ma'ali, may God prolong her existence."
- Selected Bibliography
- Pal, Pratapaditya, ed. Islamic Art: The Nasli M. Heeramaneck Collection. Los Angeles: Museum Associates, 1973.
- Blair, Sheila S. Text and Image in Medieval Persian Art. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2014.
- Komaroff, Linda. Gifts of the Sultan: the Arts of Giving at the Islamic Courts. Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 2011.
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.
Pal, Pratapaditya, Thomas W. Lentz, Sheila R. Canby, Edwin Binney, 3rd, Walter B. Denny, and Stephen Markel. "Arts from Islamic Cultures: Los Angeles County Museum of Art." Arts of Asia 17, no. 6 (November/December 1987): 73-130.
