Bowl, Minai'i ("enameled") ware

As is often the case with mina’i wares, preserved in both public and private collections, this vessel has been so extensively restored and repainted that it is impossible to determine the precise expression of the original figural composition.(1) Of this, the lower portion of the barefoot figure on the left and the face of the horseman on the right clearly appear authentic. The unshod figure, though less common than the stock models of courtiers and horsemen, is a well-known type, perhaps meant to depict a servant.(2) The figural composition is encircled by a knotted Kufic inscriptional band in Arabic, decorated with leaves and dots, that represents the letters alif-lam-dal-waw, perhaps to be read as الدولة (the Dominion).(3)

Catalogue entry from Linda Komaroff. The Robert Collection. Decorative Arts, Volume XV. Wolfram Koeppe, et al. The Metropolitan Museum of Art in association with Princeton University Press, 2012, p. 353.

NOTES:
1. The bowl was X-rayed and examined under ultraviolet light in the Objects Conservation department, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, in April 1986. The study indicated that a considerable portion of the vessel was restored, seemingly on several occasions and often quite poorly. Although the head of the horse has now been painted out, an earlier, unpublished photograph in the Robert Lehman Collection files shows what is probably a repainted version of the animal’s head. For a brief discussion of this problem within the context of mina’i wares, see Grube, Ernst J. Islamic Pottery of the Eighth to the Fifteenth Century in the Keir Collection. London, 1976, p. 195, n. 1. See also Watson, Oliver. Ceramics from Islamic Lands. London, 2004, pp. 71 – 74, 366.
2. See Grube, no. 143, for a bowl that includes barefoot figures; there are, however, no other compositional similarities. Similarly, see Perpetual Glory: Medieval Islamic Ceramics from the Harvey B. Plotnick Collection. Exhibition, Art Institute of Chicago, 31 March – 28 October 2007. Catalogue by Oya Pancaroğlu. Chicago and New Haven, 2007, no. 68.
3. A similar, though nearly illegible, inscriptional band occurs on the exterior of another Lehman bowl (1975.1.1640). More closely related inscriptions are found on a number of other mina’i wares, see Ceramics from the World of Islam. Exhibition, Freer Gallery of Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., 1973. Catalogue by Esin Atil. Washington, D.C., 1973, no. 50.

Frederic Chapman, Sion House, Twickenham, England; Chapman sale, Anderson Galleries, New York, 5-6 December 1924, lot 180. Acquired by Robert Lehman from the Chapman sale.