Lobed bowl, Minai'i ("enameled") ware

All the figures, including the horseman, wear colorful, intricately patterned robes and low caps. The drawing at center, in particular the horse, is of considerably higher quality than that of the surrounding figures. A design composed of three circles arranged in triangular fashion is repeated in the vertical elements of the arcade enclosing the standing courtiers; known as chintamani, this is a heraldic symbol among various Turkic peoples, including those who dominated in the Iranian world in the early medieval period. Deep blue, green, aubergine, redbrown, and sepia are the predominant colors, which are applied in or over a white-cream glaze. An Arabic inscription in aubergine provides the sole ornament on the exterior. Written in naskhi, it expresses a series of good wishes to the anonymous owner of the vessel:
الغالب و البقاء لصاحبه الغالب و النصر الغالب و النصر الغالب
و البقاء
الدائم و الاقبال الزائد و النصر الغالب و العز البقاء لصاحبه
Triumph and lasting life to its owner — triumph and triumphant victory [repeated twice] and lasting life . . . perpetual and increasing prosperity and triumphant victory and lasting glory to its owner. Several contemporary bowls share the same eight-lobed form; one of them, in the Freer Gallery of Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., also bears similar decoration.(1) The invocation (du‘a’) written on the vessel is comparable in content, style, and placement to the inscriptions on a number of other mina’i bowls.(2) Extensive restoration has interfered with the inscription in certain areas, and nearly every part of the interior decoration has been subjected to heavy overpainting.(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. 356.

NOTES:
1. 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. 39. In the Freer bowl, however, the eight courtiers, clad in very much the same colorfully patterned robes, are seated, while in the central medallion the figure is mounted on an elephant. See Ceramics from the World of Islam, no. 40, for another eight-lobed bowl.
2. For example, ibid., nos. 35, 38, 39, 43; 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. 67.
3. The vessel was X-rayed and examined under ultraviolet light in the Objects Conservation department, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, in April 1986.

Emile Tabbagh; Tabbagh sale, American Art Association, Anderson Galleries, New York, 3-4 January 1936, lot 148, ill. Acquired by Robert Lehman from the Tabbagh sale.

Richard P. McClary. Mina'i Ware : A Reassessment and Comprehensive Study of Iranian Polychrome Overglaze Wares through Sherds. Edinburgh, 2024, p. 105, table 3.1.