.jpg?w=1)
Lot Essay
Raqqa baluster jars, like those offered here, were most probably the product of the Euphrates kilns in eastern Syria during the period of patronage under the Ayyubid prince al-Malik al-Ashraf Musa. He took up residence in the city in the first three decades of the 13th century, and the period was a prosperous one marked by an ambitious program to construct buildings and gardens. The city was soon thereafter occupied by the Seljuqs of Rum (1235-36) and then the Khwarazmshahs (1240-41), after which it acquired a military function and went into decline until it was destroyed by the Mongols in 1265.
The few instances of Raqqa pottery recorded in medieval Europe have helped scholars build up a coherent chronology of the production of the city. The most relevant are the twenty-one Raqqa ceramic bowls (or bacini as they are known) used as mosaic fragments built into the so-called Bove pulpit in the church of San Giovanni del Toro in Ravello, Italy. Thirteen of the twenty-one fragments are painted in black under a turquoise glaze, and both technically and stylistically relate to our jars. The bacini, were installed at the time of construction between 1200 and 1230, and can thus offer a terminus ante quem for the group.
A jar with a similar design of stepped lozenge shapes, although formed of small leaf like elements rather than hatching, is in the Khalili Collection (Ernst J. Grube (ed.), Cobalt and Lustre, London, 1994, no.318, p.277). In her discussion of that jar, Cristina Tonghini calls the motif a 'willow-spray' pattern, and suggests that derives from Iranian underglaze-painted wares of the 13th century (Grube, op.cit., p.277). For another Raqqa jar, and a short note on comparable examples, please see the following lot.
The few instances of Raqqa pottery recorded in medieval Europe have helped scholars build up a coherent chronology of the production of the city. The most relevant are the twenty-one Raqqa ceramic bowls (or bacini as they are known) used as mosaic fragments built into the so-called Bove pulpit in the church of San Giovanni del Toro in Ravello, Italy. Thirteen of the twenty-one fragments are painted in black under a turquoise glaze, and both technically and stylistically relate to our jars. The bacini, were installed at the time of construction between 1200 and 1230, and can thus offer a terminus ante quem for the group.
A jar with a similar design of stepped lozenge shapes, although formed of small leaf like elements rather than hatching, is in the Khalili Collection (Ernst J. Grube (ed.), Cobalt and Lustre, London, 1994, no.318, p.277). In her discussion of that jar, Cristina Tonghini calls the motif a 'willow-spray' pattern, and suggests that derives from Iranian underglaze-painted wares of the 13th century (Grube, op.cit., p.277). For another Raqqa jar, and a short note on comparable examples, please see the following lot.