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Lot Essay
There are a number of pieces of glazed relief ware decorated in fashions similar to that seen on the present dish, which most authorities write about as a relatively coherent group. They are known unglazed, or glazed as here in a monochrome green lead glaze. There are a few related pieces which are either glazed in another colour or with more than one colour on the same vessel. Vessels and fragments have been found in a number of early Islamic sites, including Samarra, Susa, Rosen-Ayalon, Hira, al-Mina, Nishapur and Tarsus. The idea of monochrome, usually green, glazed moulded pottery vessels is one that is known from the Roman period; an example is illustrated by Arthur Lane (Early Islamic Pottery, London, 1947, pl.4A).
Origins for pieces of this group have been suggested as being Iraq, Iran, Syria and Egypt. Oliver Watson, writing on the pieces in the al-Sabah Collection in Kuwait, attributes them to different centres, but with those that he places in the Eastern Iranian world he seems at least partly reliant on their reputed immediate provenance which was Afghanistan. On similar but slightly firmer grounds a related dish now in the Freer gallery, Washington, was said to have been found at Susa and has thus been catalogued as from Iraq/Mesopotamia (Lane,op. cit., pl.5B;).
Other small dishes of this group are known. There is one in the Khalili Collection (Ernst J. Grube, Cobalt and Lustre, London, 1994, Vol. IX, no. 15, pp.22-23), the Freer Gallery (Esin Atil, Ceramics from the World of Islam, Washington D.C., 1973, no. 2, pp.16-17) and the Museum für Islamiche Kunst in Berlin (Jens Kröger and Désiré Heiden, Islamiche Kunst in Berliner Sammlungen (exhibition catalogue), no. 8, p.26). All of these are decorated with similar bands of interlacing, geometric strapwork filled with small dots or dashes. These dots or dashes are a consistent indicator of Western rather than Eastern Islamic origin. Charles K. Wilkinson, in a discussion on a similar group writes of the beaded bands that they are "very much like some of the gold-lustred ware with green splashes found at Samarra" (Charles K. Wilkinson, Nishapur Potttery from the Early Islamic Period, New York, 1974, pp.241-42 and Friedrich Sarre, Die Keramik von Samarra, Berlin, 1925, pls. X and XI).
All of the listed comparable dishes are decorated in yellow or gold-lustred yellow glazes, with green highlights. The other difference is the form, whilst these all have gently sloping sides leading to a vertical rim, the rim of ours is distinctly everted. There is another, smaller group of dishes which Grube describes as "deeper and [with] a clear articulation, with a flat well, steep-sided cavetto and everted rim" into which our dish neatly fits (Grube, op. cit., p. 23).
Origins for pieces of this group have been suggested as being Iraq, Iran, Syria and Egypt. Oliver Watson, writing on the pieces in the al-Sabah Collection in Kuwait, attributes them to different centres, but with those that he places in the Eastern Iranian world he seems at least partly reliant on their reputed immediate provenance which was Afghanistan. On similar but slightly firmer grounds a related dish now in the Freer gallery, Washington, was said to have been found at Susa and has thus been catalogued as from Iraq/Mesopotamia (Lane,op. cit., pl.5B;).
Other small dishes of this group are known. There is one in the Khalili Collection (Ernst J. Grube, Cobalt and Lustre, London, 1994, Vol. IX, no. 15, pp.22-23), the Freer Gallery (Esin Atil, Ceramics from the World of Islam, Washington D.C., 1973, no. 2, pp.16-17) and the Museum für Islamiche Kunst in Berlin (Jens Kröger and Désiré Heiden, Islamiche Kunst in Berliner Sammlungen (exhibition catalogue), no. 8, p.26). All of these are decorated with similar bands of interlacing, geometric strapwork filled with small dots or dashes. These dots or dashes are a consistent indicator of Western rather than Eastern Islamic origin. Charles K. Wilkinson, in a discussion on a similar group writes of the beaded bands that they are "very much like some of the gold-lustred ware with green splashes found at Samarra" (Charles K. Wilkinson, Nishapur Potttery from the Early Islamic Period, New York, 1974, pp.241-42 and Friedrich Sarre, Die Keramik von Samarra, Berlin, 1925, pls. X and XI).
All of the listed comparable dishes are decorated in yellow or gold-lustred yellow glazes, with green highlights. The other difference is the form, whilst these all have gently sloping sides leading to a vertical rim, the rim of ours is distinctly everted. There is another, smaller group of dishes which Grube describes as "deeper and [with] a clear articulation, with a flat well, steep-sided cavetto and everted rim" into which our dish neatly fits (Grube, op. cit., p. 23).