AN EARLY ISLAMIC BRONZE EWER

NORTH PERSIA, OR POSSIBLY SOUTHERN IRAQ, CIRCA 8TH CENTURY

Details

AN EARLY ISLAMIC BRONZE EWER
NORTH PERSIA, OR POSSIBLY SOUTHERN IRAQ, CIRCA 8TH CENTURY
With slightly shouldered spherical body rising from the flattened rounded foot, the slightly widening tubular neck with a central fluted band, a band of lightly engraved leafy designs on a pounced ground above and below, the foot with similar engraving, the everted rim with two stylised leaf-motifs at the juncture with the handle, the handle with a string of rounded bosses and handsome pomegranate thumbpiece, a stylised palmette on the body, the spine of the handle lightly engraved with kufic, patchy areas of encrustation
13½in. (34.5cm.) high

Lot Essay

This ewer is of a well-known type, but is heavier cast and grander in conception than almost all of the group. It also has considerably more surface decoration than is usually found with ewers of this type. The extent of this decoration and its details are both very reminiscent of the 'Basra ewer' signed by Abu (or Ibn) Yazid in Basra in the year AH 69 (689 AD) (Ward, Rachel: Islamic Metalwork, London, 1993, pl.32). While that ewer is of a slightly different form, various details, and particularly the treatment of the neck with a band of vertical fluting between finely engraved bands of foliate decoration, are very similar indeed.

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