A MINA'I POTTERY BOWL

CENTRAL PERSIA, CIRCA 1200

Details

A MINA'I POTTERY BOWL
CENTRAL PERSIA, CIRCA 1200
Of rounded form with cusped rim on spreading foot, the white interior painted in various enamel colours and occasional underglaze tones with a central tree issuing flowering branches and perching birds flanked by two mounted horsemen, each being chased by a man on foot with a scorpion in his hands, a sphynx below, in a blue border of reserved stylised kufic with Arabic benedictory phrases on a scrolling ground, the exterior with a band of cursory black naskh with Persian and Arabic benedictory phrases, repaired, occasional very slight restoration
7.3/8in. (18.6cm.) diam.

Lot Essay

A considerable proportion of the mina'i bowls with cusped rims have designs which are very simialr to that here, showing two horsemen flanking a tree. One was sold in these Rooms (28 April 1998, lot 248), while two others are in the Cleveland Museum of Art and an unattributed bowl published by Daneshvari (Abbas: "A preliminary study of the iconography of the peacock in Medieval Islam", in Hillenbrand, R. (ed.): The Art of the Seljuks in Iran and Anatolia, Costa Mesa, 1994, pl.182, p.200). In a closely related design on a round bowl formerly in the Mortimer Schiff Collection, the central tree springs from the mouth of a dragon while a rat scampers away below (Riefstahl, R.M.: The Parish-Watson Collection of Mohammadan Potteries, Baltimore, n.d., no.19, fig.43). The atttendant figures with scorpions in the present bowl must also have some significance within the overall iconography but which is at present unfortunately unknown.

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