Central Asia or Iran, probably Samarqand, Uzbekistan
Underglaze-painted earthenware
Diam. 11 5/8 in. (29.5 cm)
Purchase, Lewis and Gemma Hall Gift and Harvey Plotnick Gift, Louis E. and Theresa S. Seley Purchase Fund for Islamic Art, and Rogers Fund, 2003 (2003.415)
This type of ware—an earthenware vessel covered with a white slip, painted in black and reddish colors, and sealed with a thin transparent glaze—was produced in the eastern Islamic world in roughly the tenth and eleventh centuries. Bowls with straight flared walls were among the most common objects decorated in this manner.
The two most important centers of production can be identified, according to archaeological evidence, as Nishapur (Iran) and Samarqand (Uzbekistan). It is still difficult to distinguish clearly between the two productions. However, it appears that Samarqand's potters favored rather busy, bichromatic compositions similar to the decoration on this bowl, whereas Iranian craftsmen preferred all-black, bold calligraphic patterns that left much of the white background untouched. This is the main reason for a tentative attribution of the present vessel to this well-known Uzbek center, which was destined to become one of the richest cities of the Islamic world during the Timurid period in the fifteenth century, when Tamerlane chose it as his capital. The widest decorated band is divided into eight sectors, each containing the same pseudo-calligraphic motif that, with some stretch of the imagination and the help of comparable material, might be read as bi-l-yumn ("with happiness").
