AN IMPORTANT SIGNED GARRUS POTTERY CONICAL BOWL, the red pottery body covered with a white slip then carved through to leave the figures of two addorsed sphynxes with angular features, their tails entwined, surrounded by scrolling leafy vine, a reflected panel of stylised kufic below, the wing of each with a cursory inscription, one apparently reading 'Suleyman', covered with a rich ochre glaze, the exterior unglazed, late 12th century (repaired breaks)

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AN IMPORTANT SIGNED GARRUS POTTERY CONICAL BOWL, the red pottery body covered with a white slip then carved through to leave the figures of two addorsed sphynxes with angular features, their tails entwined, surrounded by scrolling leafy vine, a reflected panel of stylised kufic below, the wing of each with a cursory inscription, one apparently reading 'Suleyman', covered with a rich ochre glaze, the exterior unglazed, late 12th century (repaired breaks)
9¼in. (23.5cm.) diam.

Lot Essay

There is no doubt that the markings on the wings are an inscription of some sort. It is difficult to be certain of the reading as they are so cursory, but that on the right would appear to be the name 'Suleyman'. Thsi would make this bowl the only published signed example from the Garrus district. The signature is hidden in the same way as those on the contemporaneous bowls from Aghkand.

This has all the ingredients of the most classic examples from Garrus, and is particularly close to the bowl published in Pope (pl.617B) as being in 'Posession Larcade' with a lion looking back over its shoulder and that with a harpie formerly with Oscar Raphael and now in the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge (Pope pl.615A). Noticeable is the panel of rope-pattern running along the bodies of these animals and the formation of bold strong palmettes on the ground. The Larcade example and ours also have an almost identical panel of stylised kufic below the animal(s).
Pope, A.U.: A Survey of Persian Art, Oxford 1938

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