CENTRAL ASIA, 10TH CENTURY

This remarkable bowl is very finely potted, and its beautifully delineated decoration is under a very thin glaze. It seems to have a number of features in common with a large bowl depicting a seated ruler that is in the Khalili Collection (Ernst J. Grube, Cobalt and Lustre, The Nasser D.Khalili Collection of Islamic Art, London, 1994, no.36, pp.46 and 48). The condition of that dish was also very similar to that of the present example. All the body of our dish is preserved here, but the glaze had obviously flaked off about half of it which has been overpainted to match the original glazed areas. Judging from the precedent of the Khalili bowl, the original painting here is likely to be preserved under the restored paintwork. And while the drawing and in particular the treatment of the background are very similar in both, the present bowl also has a third colour, the sepia slip used around the rim that is absent in the Khalili example.

In his discussion of the Khalili example, Professor Grube points out its similarities to Abbasid lustre pottery. The link here is not nearly as obvious, although the cusping around the rim is something that both bowls have in common. But in the same way that the Khalili example appears to be a superbly drawn version of another type, so the present bowl clearly has a similar design to the bowls traditionally attributed to Sari. Whether this bowl and others like it served as the influence for Sari wares, or whether the influence was the other way around, is not however possible at present to determine.