Lobed Bowl

Lobed Bowl

This lobed cup exemplifies the array of elegant tableware that was present at the feasts of the urban middle class and elite in twelfth-century Greater Syria, an appraisal justified by a comparison of the ceramics assemblages found in urban or palatine contexts and those found in rural areas.[2] The cup is said to come from Raqqa’s so-called Great Find, a casual retrieval in the early twentieth century of a large number of intact vessels concealed within bigger jars, probably the stock of a merchant, in a street once devoted to selling pottery.[3] Not much is known of the context of the excavation, carried out by a displaced community of Circassians to retrieve building materials. Though authorized by the Ottoman administration, it occurred during a time of frenetic excavation activities, both legal and illegal, at the site. The assemblage, however, was documented in detail, and several objects entered the market soon after their retrieval.[4] The group consisted mainly of underglaze- and luster-painted stonepaste vessels, predominantly bowls and jars. It is plausible that the entire cache was manufactured in Raqqa, a major center of stonepaste production in the twelfth and early thirteenth centuries. This bowl and nine other luster-painted vessels with the same epigraphic motif have been attributed to the same painter [5]

The cup’s lobed shape represents a departure from the range of vessels produced in northern Mesopotamia and Syria in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries and might reflect an eastern influence, as was the case with the variety of shapes, often lobed, that began to appear in Iranian stonepaste manufacture of the late eleventh century. The shape ultimately seems to originate in the metalwork of the Iranian and Central Asian territories, where it is attested in bronzes of the Sogdian period well into the tenth and eleventh centuries and in high-tin bronzes manufactured in Khurasan.[6] This is particularly interesting, as Jaziran and Syrian stonepaste of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries appears to have had a rather standardized range of shapes, which probably reflects intensified production for a larger but less demanding market.[7] This cup’s more rarified design suggests that it was produced for a more discerning and sophisticated market than the one for which the usual range of vessels was created, and long after stonepaste was introduced as a technological innovation and luxury commodity in the late eleventh century.

Martina Rugiadi in [Canby, Beyazit, and Rugiadi 2016]

Footnotes:

2. For the cup in general, see Jenkins-Madina, Marilyn. Raqqa Revisited: Ceramics of Ayyubid Syria. New York, 2006, pp. 129, 166, 174, profile 9 (p. 174); in the first reproduction of the object the blue paint is not visible, see Kouchakji, Fahim. “Glories of Er Rakka Pottery.” International Studio 76, no. 310 (March 1923), p. 523. For urban versus rural finds, see Tonghini, Cristina. Qal‘at Ja‘bar Pottery: A Study of a Syrian Fortified Site of the Late 11th–14th Centuries. British Academy Monographs in Archaeology, 11. 1995. Oxford and New York, 1998, pp. 50–51; McPhillips, S[tephen] A. “Continuity and Innovation in Syrian Artisanal Traditions of the 9th to the 13th Centuries: The Ceramic Evidence from the Syrian-French Citadel of Damascus Excavations.” Bulletin d’études orientales 61 (2012), p. 459; Rugiadi, Martina. “La ceramica di qal‘at Homs: Vasellame di lusso e di uso comune, il contesto storico e le funzioni della cittadella islamica.” In Fontana, Maria Vittoria, and Bruno Genito, eds. Studi in onore di Umberto Scerrato per il suo settantacinquesimo compleanno. Università degli Studi di Napoli “L’Orientale,” Dipartimento di Studi Asiatici, Istituto Italiano per l’Africa e l’Oriente, Series minor, 65. Naples, 2003, vol. 2, pp. 710–11; Milwright, Marcus. “Ceramics from the Recent Excavations near the Eastern Wall of Rafiqa (Raqqa), Syria.” Levant 37 (2005), pp. 197–219.

3. The trench, made in the vicinity of the medieval palace of Qasr al-Banat (earlier thought to be the palace of Harun al-Rashid) in 1906–7, was initially said to have unearthed “the old suq.” The number of intact vessels from the Great Find was about sixty; see Yoltar-Yildirim, Ays in. “Raqqa: The Forgotten Excavation of an Islamic Site in Syria by the Ottoman Imperial Museum in the Early Twentieth Century.” Muqarnas 30 (2013), pp. 77, 82–85, 88–89; Kouchakji 1923 (reference in note 2 above), pp. 523–24; Jenkins-Madina 2006 (reference in note 2 above), pp. 16, 27.

4. Not all the objects were illustrated in the article reporting the finding (Kouchakji 1923; see Jenkins-Madina 2006 [both references in note 2 above]). Two are in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum (56.185.18, .25).

5. That Raqqa was a major production center is confirmed by the excavation of a large number of wasters; see Tonghini 1998 (reference in note 2 above), pp. 50–51; Milwright 2005 (reference in note 2 above), pp. 210–17; Yoltar-Yildirim 2013 (reference in note 3 above). For the hypothesis of the painter, see Jenkins- Madina 2006 (reference in note 2 above), p. 166. She also identifies three similar but unfinished objects now in the Karatay Museum, Konya, that may have been brought from Raqqa (pp. 23–25 and 33–35, appendix I).

6. Melikian-Chirvani, A[ssadullah] S[ouren]. “The Iranian Bazm in Early Persian Sources.” Res Orientales 4 [Banquets d’Orient] (1992), pp. 126–27, 135. However, the size of this cup is larger.

7. As observed by most scholars working with excavated assemblages; see Tonghini 1998 and McPhillips 2012 (both references in note 2 above), p. 456.

Inscription: Inscribed in Arabic in kufic on exterior:
برکة
Blessing (repeated) [1]

Note 1. An additional inscription, written in naskhi on the interior, is illegible.

(Abdullah Ghouchani, 2011)

Marking: -Sticker on base: 491 / 570103 (?)

H. O. Havemeyer Collection, New York (by 1931–48; gifted to MMA by Horace Havemeyer)

New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Ceramic Art of the Near East," May 12–June 23, 1931, no. 166.

New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Court and Cosmos: The Great Age of the Seljuqs," April 25–July 24, 2016, no. 67.

Kouchakji, Fahim Joseph. "Glories of er-Rakka Pottery." International Studio no. 76 (March 1923) (1923). p. 523.

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. p. 38, no. 166.

Grube, Ernst J. "Raqqa-Keramik im Metropolitan Museum in New York." Kunst des Orients vol. 4 (1963). p. 61, fig. 18.

Jenkins-Madina, Marilyn. "Ceramics of Ayyubid Syria." In Raqqa Revisited. New York; New Haven: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2006. pp. 129, 166, 174, ill. pl. MMA14 (color).

Komaroff, Linda, ed. Dining with the Sultan : The Fine Art of Feasting. Los Angeles; New York: Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 2023. cat. 57a, p. 216, ill.

Canby, Sheila R., Deniz Beyazit, and Martina Rugiadi. "The Great Age of the Seljuqs." In Court and Cosmos. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2016. no. 67, p. 137, ill. (color).