MESOPOTAMIA OR CENTRAL ASIA, 9TH CENTURY

A smaller bowl of comparable potting and with a similarly drawn figure, but under a distressed glaze, was sold in these Rooms 23 October 2007, lot 145. Another was offered on 8 April 2008 as lot 30. The figures on those and on ours are drawn with a clarity and assurance that is frequently missing on early lustre pottery. They do not seem to relate closely in style or technique to Abbasid bowls attributed to Iraq, and certainly not to those from Egypt. The strong drawing is closer to the delineation found on Nishapur and Central Asian pots, a number of which depict human figures, but not quite in this technique. The strongest stylistic indications are the small floral designs, particularly those in the bowl sold here in 2007. There the rosette under the raised elbow is very similar to those on "Sari" wares; these motifs are also found on slip painted wares from Samarkand and Nishapur. There is also a similarity of the small floral sprays on each side of the figure on that bowl, as well as the trefoil sprays to the right of the figure on the bowl offered here, to those on an imitation lustre bowl in the Khalili Collection that is attributed to Nishapur (Ernst J. Grube, Cobalt and Lustre, The Nasser D. Khalili Collection of Islamic Art, no.46, p.63). Again this reinforces an attribution to North East Iran or Central Asia. For further discussion on this type of pottery and its attribution, please see the preceding lot.