AN IMPORTANT KASHAN LUSTRE CONICAL BOWL on cylindrical foot, the white interior with a central roundel containing asymmetrical arabesques on a scrolling ground, the sides with a band of well-delineated naskh inverted benedictory inscription below a band of elongated stylised kufic reserved against the lustre ground traced with scrolling motifs and interrupted by floral roundels, the reverse with vertical bands of roundels and dotted motifs, the underside of the foot with the lustre figure of a dancer, early 13th century (repaired)

Details

AN IMPORTANT KASHAN LUSTRE CONICAL BOWL on cylindrical foot, the white interior with a central roundel containing asymmetrical arabesques on a scrolling ground, the sides with a band of well-delineated naskh inverted benedictory inscription below a band of elongated stylised kufic reserved against the lustre ground traced with scrolling motifs and interrupted by floral roundels, the reverse with vertical bands of roundels and dotted motifs, the underside of the foot with the lustre figure of a dancer, early 13th century (repaired)
7in. (17.8cm.) diam.

Lot Essay

The figure under the base is an extremely unusual feature. It could be a 'signature', or possibly an experiment by the potter. A very similar figure appears on the interior of a Kashan silhouette ware bowl from the Barlow collection, now in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford (Fehérvári no.87, pl.38). Another without the distinctive hat is silhouetted under a turquoise glaze on a bowl in the Victoria and Albert Museum (Lane, EIP, pl.51A). This bowl is thus significant in giving a tentative link between the lustre and silhouette wares of the late 12th and early 13th centuries.

Fehérvári, G.: Islamic Pottery - A Comprehensive Study based on the Barlow Collection, London 1973
Lane, A.: Early Islamic Pottery, London 1947

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