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Lot Essay
Around the body is a call to God to bless the Prophet and the Twelve Imams. On the lid is the Nada 'Ali quatrain, Qur'an Sura al-Saff (LXI), parts of 13, invocations to Muhammad and 'Ali and an Arabic couplet (not all deciphered).
A later owners inscription on the rim reads: Sahibihi 'Alishah ibn Allah-Dad (Its owner 'Alishah ibn Allah-dad)
It is very unusual to find a bowl of this period with its original cover. The similarity of the decoration in the present case leaves no doubt that they were made for each other. A similar covered bowl is in the Historisches Museum, Berne (Arthur Upham Pope, A Survey of Persian Art, Oxford, 1938, pl.1385B, while another is in a private collection (A. S. Melikian-Chirvani, Islamic Metalwork from the Iranian World, London 1982, fig.63A, p.242). The decoration on the present bowl with its compartments containing cloudband-motifs and arabesques has more in common with a bowl in the Metropolitan Museum of Art which is signed and dated 942/1535 (Pope, op. cit., pl.1385A). Even closer in design, although noticeably finer in workmanship, is a bowl in the David Collection, Copenhagen (Kjeld von Folsach, Art from the World of Islam in the David Collection, Copenhagen, 2001, no.529, p.329).
A later owners inscription on the rim reads: Sahibihi 'Alishah ibn Allah-Dad (Its owner 'Alishah ibn Allah-dad)
It is very unusual to find a bowl of this period with its original cover. The similarity of the decoration in the present case leaves no doubt that they were made for each other. A similar covered bowl is in the Historisches Museum, Berne (Arthur Upham Pope, A Survey of Persian Art, Oxford, 1938, pl.1385B, while another is in a private collection (A. S. Melikian-Chirvani, Islamic Metalwork from the Iranian World, London 1982, fig.63A, p.242). The decoration on the present bowl with its compartments containing cloudband-motifs and arabesques has more in common with a bowl in the Metropolitan Museum of Art which is signed and dated 942/1535 (Pope, op. cit., pl.1385A). Even closer in design, although noticeably finer in workmanship, is a bowl in the David Collection, Copenhagen (Kjeld von Folsach, Art from the World of Islam in the David Collection, Copenhagen, 2001, no.529, p.329).