Bowl with Green Splashes

Bowl

The Mesopotamian opaque white- or cream-glazed ware during the ninth century was the result of efforts by the Islamic potters to imitate the imported Chinese porcelain. Since the Mesopotamian potters could not obtain kaolin, a fine clay specially required to achieve the white, thin, semi-transparent body of porcelain to be fired at high temperature, they simply used to apply opaque white glaze on thick earthenware fired at a low temperature. However, they added their own attractive designs, such as vegetal, geometric, and inscriptional decorations, in cobalt-blue and green pigments on these white opaque wares. Inscriptions on this type of ware are written in the highly stylized angular Arabic script called Kufic and they usually contain the blessing to the owners of the vessels and sometimes the names of the potters; on this bowl it reads "Blessing, good fortune." The green splashes on this bowl are well controlled to flow straight toward the center of the vessel. The Mesopotamian opaque white ware, exported to other regions of the Islamic world, was in turn imitated by regional potters; those imitations were less elegant in style and poorer in quality, and cobalt-blue was never used.

Tomoko Masuya in [Walker et al. 1994]

Inscription: In Arabic in center: Blessing and good fortune

[ Art market, Near East, until 1930; sold to MMA through Maurice Dimand]

Mexico City. Colegio de San Ildefonso. "Arte Islámico del Museo Metropolitano de Arte de Nueva York," September 30, 1994–January 8, 1995, no. 37.

Dimand, Maurice S. "The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, May 12–June 28, 1931." In Ceramic Art of the Near East. New York, 1931. no. 17.

Dimand, Maurice S. "A Recent Gift of Near Eastern Art." Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, o.s., vol. 26 (March 1931). p. 7.

Dimand, Maurice S. A Handbook of Muhammadan Art. 2nd rev. and enl. ed. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1944. p. 171, no ill.

Metropolitan Museum of Art, Daniel S. Walker, Arturo Ponce Guadián, Sussan Babaie, Stefano Carboni, Aimee Froom, Marie Lukens Swietochowski, Tomoko Masuya, Annie Christine Daskalakis-Matthews, Abdallah Kahil, and Rochelle Kessler. "Colegio de San Ildefonso, Septiembre de 1994–Enero de 1995." In Arte Islámico del Museo Metropolitano de Arte de Nueva York. Mexico City: Consejo Nacional para la Cultura y las Artes, 1994. no. 37, pp. 118–19, ill. (b/w).