SAMARRA, MESOPOTAMIA, 9TH CENTURY

Details

AN ABBASID POLYCHROME AND RUBY LUSTRE POTTERY BOWL
Samarra, Mesopotamia, 9th Century
Of rounded form with flaring rim on short foot, the off-white interior painted with brilliantly varied lustre colours forming a complex geometric design of panels of circles and other geometric motifs, together with leaf-motifs and stylised flowerheads, a band of polychrome lobes around the rim, the exterior with alternating ruby and golden lustre diagonal bold hatching, considerable areas of restoration, brilliant glaze on original sections
10 5/8in. (26.4cm.) diam.

Special notice

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Lot Essay

Ruby colouration, to judge from the bowls and fragments which have survived to the present day, was highly sought after by the ninth century potters but rarely well-achieved. One remarkable fragment now in the Khalili Collection has a ground of an intense scarlet (Grube, Ernst J.: Cobalt and Lustre, London, 1994, no.19, p.27). Other examples where the rich red is tried but with less brilliancy are in the Keir Collection (Grube, Ernst J.: Islamic Pottery of the Eighth to the Fifteenth Century in the Keir Coollection, London, 1976, nos. 10 and 11, pp.47 and 49) and in the al-Sabah Collection (Jenkins, Marilyn (ed.): Islamic Art in the Kuwait National Museum, London, 1983, p.22). See also lot 276 in this sale.

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