Shallow Bowl with Lustre Decoration

Location: Iraq

Materials: pink-bodied earthenware, with an opaque white glaze, decorated in greenish and brown lustre

Dimensions: 7 x 17.8cm

Accession Number: POT 1686

Other Notes:

The decorative motifs resemble those on the lustre-painted tiles in the Great Mosque of Kairouan in Tunisia (datable circa 860), which were most probably sent as a gift from Iraq to the Abbasid governor of Tunisia. Significantly, one of the Islamic glass dishes from the Famensi pagoda in Shaanxi province in China (sealed in 874) is painted in lustre with a similar design.

Bibliography:

E.J. Grube et al, Cobalt and Lustre. The First Centuries of Islamic Pottery, The Nasser D Khalili Collection of Islamic Art, volume IX, London 1994, cat.28, pp.40–41.
J.M. Rogers, The Arts of Islam. Masterpieces from the Khalili Collection, London 2010, cat.28, p.49.