Grube, Ernst J. - The Art of Islamic Pottery (the Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, V.23, No.6, February 1965)

7/30/2019 Grube, Ernst J. - The Art of Islamic Pottery (the Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, V.23, No.6, February 1965)

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T h e A r t o f I s lamic PotteryE R N S T J. G R U B E AssociateCuratorn Chargeof Islamic Art

he Metropolitan Museum of Art possesses one of the few truly comprehensivecollections of Islamicpottery, but, as in any collection that aimsat full representationof a particularart form, there are inevitable gaps. It has fortunately been possible, inthe last two yearsor so, to fill at least some of these gaps, and also to add a numberofexceptional pieces in areasalreadyrepresented.These recent acquisitionscover so widea range that a survey of them constitutes a brief history of the most important schoolsof Islamic pottery, from its origins through the main span of its development.

Pottery attained the status of an art in the Muslim world only after contact withthe stonewareand porcelainof China, at the end of the eighth century, when theseseem to have been imported in quantity for the first time to the Abbasid court atBaghdad. This city, founded by the second Abbasid caliph, al-Mansur, in 762, andSamarra,the soldiers'city built by al-Mutasim in 836 about fifty miles to the north,becamethe centers of Islamic culture in the ninth century, and here the firstschoolsofceramicmakingwereestablished.The earliestproductsof the Baghdadkilnsareobviousattempts to imitate Chinese T'ang porcelains,but soon the Muslim potters developeda taste of their own, and, although always inspired by Chinese examples, began toproduce molded and multicolored wares of great beauty and originality.One of the main problemsof the Iraqi potters was that they did not have thenecessaryingredients for making true porcelain as they did not have the clay calledkaolin. This is a deficiency that all Near Eastern countries share. A large part of thehistory of Islamic pottery making is therefore taken up by the struggle against thisdeficiency, and by efforts to develop a ceramic body that would at least come close tothe admiredproducts of the Chinesekilns.The Baghdadand Samarrapotters used ordinarypotter's clay, which they coveredwith a lead-fluxedglaze, a material so liquid in firing as to make underglazepaintingimpossible, or the colors blur or run together.True alkalineglazes,madefrompowderedsandandquartz crystal,and fluxedwith potashor soda would not run in the firingandsomade underglazepaintingpossible;they would not, however, stick to ordinary potters'clay, which made the productionof a new artificialbody necessary,madeof quartzandglassymatter very similar to that of the actual glaze. Although known in Egypt at alltimes, these "secrets"of the potters' art did not reach the rest of the Muslim worldbefore the twelfth century. With such technical limitations the early Iraqi potters had

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s. Cobalt-painted owl, Iraqi, Ix-x century.Diameter 74 inches.RogersFund,63.16.2

the formidable taskof providing ceramicsthatwould look like and would be to a degree asdurable as Chinese porcelains. To please thecaliphandhis court, they invented a variety ofshapes,coloredglazes,anddecorative schemes.Realizing, for example, that it was impossibleto match the special surface quality of whiteT'ang porcelain merely by using a lead glazeover a white slip, they devised a modifiedform of lead glaze, mixed with tin oxide, thesuspendedparticlesof which renderedit whiteand opaque in firing. This new glaze, appliedin a heavy coating to a highly purified yellowclay body, eventually came very close to theeffect of T'ang wares,andmany pieces of plainwhite tin-glazed bowls and small plates havebeen found in Samarraand elsewhere in Iraq.But it seemsthat the Muslim potters were notsatisfied for long with such unadorned pot-tery, and a second color was soon added, amagnificent deep cobalt blue. In sparinglyapplied, small-scale patterns, the surface ofusually small, shallow bowls was decoratedwith a few quick brushstrokes, contrasting ina particularly appealing way with the dull,grayish white of the glaze. These pieces arevery rare. Among the recent acquisitions ofthe Museum are two specimensof a type deco-rated, not with the customary floral or ab-stract linear patterns, but with writing. Thebeauty of the written word attracted Muslimartists of all periods, and in no other culturewaswriting as a form of art developed to sucha degree. One of the two pieces (Figure I) isdecorated with only a single line of threewords, running horizontally from the right ofthe center to the left rim, giving the artist'sname - Sahil. The asymmetry of this inscrip-tion is not reallyIslamicbut rather FarEasternin spirit,and may well have been inspired bya Chinese model. The second bowl (Figure 2)is more in the usual taste of Islamic art, its2. Cobalt-paintedbowl, Iraqi, Ix-x century.Diameter 8 inches. HarrisBrisbaneDickFund, 63.I59.4

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balanceddesign onsisting f twowords n thecenter,onesetexactlybeneath heother,plusa series f quicklypaintedhalfcirclesrunningaround heedge.This soneof thefinestpiecesof its kind,bothbecause f its perfectcondi-tion and the superior ualityof its design.Most mportant f alltheinnovations f theIraqipotterswasthe inventionof an entirelynew techniquethat revolutionizedpotterydecoration n the NearEast:lusterpainting.Eventhough tsoriginsarenot entirelyclear,and althoughEgypt is sometimescreditedwith havingproduced he earliestexamples,in paintingon glass,thereis no doubt thatlusterwasfirstemployedon a largescaleforceramicdecorationn Baghdad ndSamarra.Thepigment orlusterpainting smadebycompoundingulfur n variousormswith sil-veror copperoxide.Thiscompounds mixedwith red or yellow ocher,with a mild acidsuchasvinegar r wine eesusedas a medium,and is appliedto a ceramic urface hat hasalreadybeen glazedand fired.In a second,light firing,with little air andmuchsmoke,the pigment s fixedto the glaze.The ocherthenrubsoff,andtheoxides dhere, roducinguponthesurface f theglazea brilliantmetal-licstain,rangingncolor romgreenish ellowto reddish rown.Boththe hueandthedegreeof brilliancevaryaccordingo theingredientsof the pigmentand the thickness f applica-tion. Differentoxide combinationsproducedifferenttones, and the thinnerand moretransparenthe lusterfilm, the greatertherangeof coloreffectsandreflectionshat canbe achieved.This richand subtle techniquewas ormanycenturies neof themostimpor-tant features f Islamicpotterydecoration.Themakers f theearliestusterpiecesusedmore complexpatterns than those on thecobalt-painted ares,andtheyexploredullythe potentialfor multicoloreffectsthat thenewtechnique ffered.Alittlelater,probablytoward he endof the tenthcentury, hepot-ters abandoned he more difficult,if moreexpressive, olychrome ffects for a simpler,overall tone of greenish yellow or goldenbrown, but at the same time, in compensa-tion, introducing a great variety of figuralpatterns. All early luster pieces are rare,espe-

3, 4. Luster-painted owl, Iraqi, x century.Diameter 12 inches.FletcherFund, 64.134


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cially those that are well preserved, for lusterfades easily when the glaze comes into contactwith soil acids and begins to corrode. We aretherefore very fortunate to have a tenth cen-tury bowl (Figure 3) that is not only unusualin size and quality of design, but is also inperfect condition. The symmetrical patternconsists of two large peacocks facing eachother, very much in the fashion of a heraldicemblem. The outside is painted with a simplepattern of circles and lines (Figure 4) typicalof all Iraqi luster ware.

The technique of luster painting seems tohave been a jealously guarded secret that formany yearswas the exclusive possessionof thepotters of Iraq.In the eastern Persianprovinceof Khurasan,for example, where, in the ninthand tenth centuries, the city of Nishapur be-came an important cultural center and pro-duced a wide variety of interesting potterytypes, luster painting seems to have been un-known. Pottery imported from Iraq,however,seems to have incited the admirationand envyof Nishapur potters to such a degree that seri-ous attempts were made to imitate it. Theresults are technically of a quite different na-ture, and fall far behind the originals n effect,but their bold, decorative designs have a dis-tinctive quality of their own that makes themmost attractive. A large bowl (Figure 5) - thelargest of its kind yet found -is a perfectlypreserved and especially beautiful example ofthe type. The highly stylized floralandanimalmotifs, combined in an overall geometricalpattern, are executed with a reddish brownpigment upon a yellow slip. The whole is cov-ered with a shining, translucent glaze, withthe evident intent of reproducing both thecolor and brilliance of true luster. The resultis highly effective and original, even thoughdependent upon Iraqi models -a dependencethat can be most clearly seen on the outside ofthe bowl (Figure 6), where the typical Iraqidesign of large circles filled with parallel linespainted in quick brushstrokes is used (com-pare Figure 4).

As this bowl from Nishapur demonstrates,the Khurasan potters had found a secret oftheir own; namely, how to paint beneath afluid lead glaze without the danger of having

OPPOSITE:5, 6. Slip-paintedbowl (imitation luster),Persian(Nishapur), x-xi century.Diameter I32 inches. HarrisBrisbaneDick Fund, 63.I59.1

7. Slip-paintedbowl, Persian Khurasan), x century.Diameter 78 inches.Rogers Fund, 62.I70.1

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8. Luster-painted owl, Egyptian(Cairo), xi century.Diameter 7 inches.RogersFund, 63.I6.3

9. Detail of a carvedwoodenpanel, Iraqi (Samarra), ix century.StateMuseums, Berlin-Dahlem

the design destroyed in firing. This techniqueof underglaze painting appears to have beenfirst developed in the great center of CentralAsian culture, Samarkand,which at the timewas under the rule of the same local princes,the Samanids, that ruled in Nishapur; it wasprobably introduced into Nishapur in thetenth century. Special pigments were devel-oped, combining metal oxides, for the colors,with an earth medium that had a similarcom-position to the clay slip and so formed a bondstrongenough not to be dissolved by the liquidglaze. This "slip painting," as it has been apt-ly called, carried pottery decoration to newheights in the Muslim East about two cen-turies before the introduction of alkalineglazes and an artificial ceramicbody. Anothersmall bowl from Khurasan (Figure 7) demon-strates in a particularly successful way thepossibilities for polychrome painting on pot-tery in this technique. The essentially abstractdesign is executed in aubergine, ocher, andbrownish red upon a yellow background, andyellow dots are applied here and there to en-rich the simple pattern. The yellow, red, andocher, obviously well mixed with a clay-slippaste, have stayed in place under the glaze,but the aubergine, which perhaps could notbe mixed with so much earthen matter with-out diluting the color, has blurred or run inmany areas.With the decline of Abbasid power duringthe tenth century, a great many artists, andamong them many potters, seem to have leftIraq in search of more profitable and secureemployment. The newly established and re-splendent court of the independent Fatimiddynasty in Cairoapparently attracted most ofthem, and it was here that the tradition ofluster painting was continued. A small bowl(Figure 8) decorated with a beautifully de-signed palmette tree, surrounded by a bandof inscription, showsthe earliest stage of lusterpainting in Cairo. The way the leaves aredrawn, one growing from another in a fashionanticipating one of the most characteristicformsof laterIslamicornament, the arabesque,recallsthe designsof Samarrawood carvingsofthe late ninth century (Figure 9), and theircontinuation in wood and plaster carvings of

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the Tulunid and early Fatimid periods. Sincea number of these carvingscan be dated ratherprecisely, the attribution of this bowl to thebeginning of the tenth century is relativelysecure.

Even though the actual potting is less ac-complished, the shapes simpler and less welldesigned, Fatimid luster wareshave one greatadvantage over those made in Iraq: they wereoften decorated by truly great painters. Someof these artists may well have been Iraqis,trained in the Samarratradition, but most ofthem wereundoubtedly Egyptians, trained inthe late classicalstyle that survived in Egyptfor many a century after the Arab conquest.That many of their works are signed is testi-mony to the appreciation and social standingthe paintersseem to have enjoyed. Among themany artists known, two stand out: Muslimand S'ad. Until recently neither was repre-sented in our collection, but we now have re-ceived a beautiful bowl by Muslim (FigureIi). It is decorated with the powerfully drawnfigure of an eagle, almost heraldic in its sim-plicity. The signature of the artist appearsbeneath the eagle'sright claw, and alsoon thecenter of the back of the bowl (Figure io).Muslim seemsto have remainedclose to Meso-potamian traditions, and the familiar circleand dash pattern on the outside of this bowlmake the origin of the style and techniquequite clear.The twelfth century marks the turningpoint of pottery making in Persia. With thefall of the Fatimid dynasty in II7i, and prob-ably even before that date, a new migration ofpotters took place, but this time from west toeast. With these artistsfrom Cairo the secretsof alkalineglazing, the manufactureof an arti-ficial ceramic body, and luster painting wereintroduced into Persia.Pottery was then pro-duced all over Persia in great quantities andof higher quality than any previously knownin the Islamicworld. Rayy, near Tehran, thecapital of the Seljuk Turks who since thetenth century had dominated the politics andculture of Persia, and Kashan, another cityruled by the Seljuks, in central Iranabout I50miles to the south of Tehran, were the prin-cipal centers.

zo. Detail of Figure I , showingsignatureon bottom

iI. Luster-painted owl signedby Muslim, Egyptian(Cairo), earlyxi century.Diameterto inches. Gift of Mr. and Mrs. CharlesK. Wilkinson,63.178.1


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Because of the similarityof the new ceramicbody to alkalineglazes,a fusion between bodyand glaze could be achieved that was withoutprecedent in the Muslim East. This fusionmade the use of a clayslipover the body beforepainting or glazing unnecessary, but allowedpainting on the surfaceof the body itself. Thenew alkaline glazes achieved a brilliance andpurity that seemed to match those of the stillenvied Chinese porcelains. The earliest prod-ucts of the Seljuk workshops are once againgreatly influenced by white-glazed T'ang andSung wares. A bowl with steep sides (Figure12) restingon a fairly high foot, covered witha brilliant white glaze over a finely potted,pure-white ceramic body, does in fact reach atechnical perfection that seems to match thatof Chineseporcelain. But, of course, there wasno way of making the ceramic body translu-cent. To overcome this shortcoming, the pot-ter incised his delicate design so deeply intothe walls of the bowl that light would pene-trate them, creating the illusionthat the wholevessel wastranslucent. This device wasused forcenturies in Persian pottery, and reappearedin the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries(Figure 13).The Seljuk potters were immensely produc-tive. They created an almost infinite varietyof shapes, patterns, and sizes, sometimes de-pendent upon Chinesemodels, but more oftencompletely andimaginatively original. Among

14 (above), I5 (below, left). Bowl in bird shape, Persian, XII century.Height3s inches.HarrisBrisbaneDick Fund, 63.I59.3I6. Fragmentarybowl, Persian, II century.Height about 5 inches.TehranMuseumI7. Stucco head, Persian, xII-xm century. Height Io inches. Rogers

Fund, 33. II

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the many types made in the twelfth century,that with molded relief decoration seems tohave been especially popular. This type wassubject in turn to many variations, of whichthe Museum possessesa large and representa-tive selection, but one recently discoveredexample is so unusual that it may well be theunique survivor of its kind. This smallwhite-glazed bowl (Figure 14) is in the shape of abird with a human face. Its body is decoratedwith delicate reliefs: a frieze of animals run-ning along the rim, and a medallion on eachside containing a human figure. The slightlyfluted foot follows the outline of the vessel asa whole-rounded in front and coming to asharppoint behind. The face (Figure I5) withits almond-shaped eyes, straight nose, highcheekbones, and minute mouth, is clearly ofthe Seljuk type, as encountered in the stuccosculpture (Figure I7) and painted pottery ofthe period. Its application to what appears tobe the body of a bird recalls the mythologicalfigure of the harpy, which can frequently befound in Islamic art and probably goes backto Central Asian sources.The sameface, witha very similarcrownand necklace, appearsona small fragmentary bowl (Figure i6) in Teh-ran; there it constitutes the sole element ofdecoration, repeated eight times, so that thebowl has a multilobed shape. There can belittle doubt that both pieces belong to thesame school, the location of which we do notknow, but it may well have been Rayy.Muslim potters of the twelfth and thir-teenth centuries were not content, however,with molding the surfacesof vessels into ani-mal shapes, but occasionally tried to makesomething closer to the real thing. The resultof these efforts is an exceedingly scarcegroupof human and animal figurines n clay, most ofthem small in scale, and generally decoratedin monochrome glaze. Many still at least pre-tend to be objects of utility -aquamaniles orvases; that is, they areusuallyhollow and havean opening at the top into which water canbe poured. A few of thesepieces, however, aresolid: real pieces of small sculpture, a greatrarity in Islamicart. Such a work is the hand-some camel (Figure i8), only eight incheshigh, bearing on its hump an enclosed balda-

chin saddle of the type used by Muslim wom-en. The piece, probably made in the secondhalf of the twelfth century, is covered with aglaze that was originally turquoise blue buthas turned an even more appealing silverytone. Attribution of such objects to a parti-cular workshopis very difficult, but they mayhave been made at Rayy, for the special de-light of the nobles of the court.It was probably in the same city (thoughsubstantial proof is lacking) that the art ofluster painting was at this time introduced,and developed to new heights of perfection.

OPPOSITE:18. Camel, Persian,xI century.

Height 8 inches.FletcherFund, 64.59

I9. Luster-painted wer, Persian(Rayy), xiI-xiiI century.Height 12 1316 nches. HarrisBrisbaneDick Fund, 63.I57.


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Three luster-painted pieces in the style asso-ciated with Rayy significantly enlargeour stillmuch too small collection of this particularlybeautiful and important type of Islamic pot-tery. The style in its most typical form isrepresented in two of these, a largeewer (Fig-ure I9) and a small, fairly deep bowl (Figure20). Figures and floralmotifs are reserved in adeep brown luster ground, creating a contrastbetween the solid, unbroken background andthe white designs. Individual details are de-finedwith only a few strokesof drawing. Moreunusual is a large, shallow plate (Figure 2I),glazed in cobalt blue on the outside, as aremany Rayy lusterpieces, but decorated on theinside with a figureof a young man, an inscrip-tion, and a scalloped borderpainted in brownon a white ground -the very reverse of theusual Rayy style. Only a few pieces of thistype are known.The most interesting aspect of these luster-painted wares is their reflection of an other-wise almost entirely lost art: painting fromthe Seljuk period has come down to us onlyin a single illuminated manuscript and a fewfragments of wall painting, but it must havebeen extensive, and there can be little doubtthat many of the painters who decorated ce-ramicssuch as these were equally, if not pri-marily, employed in decorating the palacesofthe Seljuk rulers and princes, and in illus-trating theirmanuscripts.The seated figureofthe small bowl especially suggests such paint-ing, for he has obviously been taken out ofcontext. His hand is raised in a gesture ofspeech, directed toward a companion who isnot represented. The drawingof the figure isextremely accomplished; executed in an al-most impressionistic manner

with a few swiftbrushstrokes, it is in sharp contrast to theratherponderous contour of the more decora-tive figure on the large plate.

Rayy was totally destroyed and its inhab-itants slaughteredby the conqueringMongols,who invaded Persia in the early thirteenthcentury, reaching the capital in 1220. By I258they capturedBaghdad,andmurderedthe lastAbbasid caliph, who was still at least nomi-nally Leader of the Faithful. With this blowthe Abbasideracame to an end. It took almost


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OPPOSITE:20. (above). Luster-painted owl, Persian

(Rayy), xnI-xiI century.Diameter 7 6inches.Purchase, osephPulitzerBequest,63.I58.1

21. (below). Luster-painted owl, Persian(Rayy), xii-x century.Diameter 414inches.FletcherFund, 64.60.3

22 (right). Luster-paintedile, Persian(Kashan), xiii century. I22 inchessquare.FletcherFund, 64.60.4

23. Head of a bodhisattva, upposedlyromCaveI, Bazaklil, ChineseTurkestan,viII century. I42 x I2 inches. FletcherFund, 47.18. 32

24. ,lc,',Urcu ,C,yuFnei, rerszi., \___.._,xiii century.About 24 inchessquare.Gift of Horace Havemeyer, 4 . 65. 0,I4, i6, 19, 24-27, 32-34, 38


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25. Bird designs rom Kashan lusterware.From ArsIslamica,III, I936

OPPOSITE:26. (above). Luster-painted late, Persian Kashan),xiiI century.DiameterI336 inches.Anonymous

gift, 62.22627. (below). Luster-painted late, Persian(Kashan),

dated A.D. 1211. The University Museum,Philadelphia

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half a century before the devastated cities ofPersia recovered and new cultural life sprangup. Rayy never did recover, and cotton fieldsstretch our today whereonce the great Seljuksruled.One exception seemsto have been the othergreat pottery center of Persia,Kashan, whichprosperedunder the Seljuksandseemsto havesurvived the Mongol conquest remarkablywell. Kashan was active in pottery makingfrom the beginning of the twelfth century.Its best known and probably finest waresarethose painted with luster, and the Museumhas recently added a number of importantluster-painted Kashan pieces to its alreadylarge collection.Most unusual of these is a tile in the shapeof a cross (Figure 22), decorated with rows ofseated figures. Kashan became so famous forits ceramic tiles, with which it supplied therest of Persia, that all tiles came to be calledkashisor kashanis. Such cross-shaped tiles asthis were combined with star-shaped tiles tocover large nteriorsurfaces(Figure24). Cross-shaped tiles, however, are usually small anddecorated only with abstract floral motifs.Those with human figures are rare, and onlya smallfragment of one was previously in thecollection.

The figures on this tile are not painted inreserve ike the figureson the Rayy pieces, butrather form an integrated part of the overalldecoration. Except for the faces and the ha-loes, no part of the design is left unembel-lished. Garments are covered with what lookslike a fine scrollornament but is in fact a seriesof interlocked half circles, ending in dots. Thesamepattern appears n the background,whereit has been scratched into the luster groundwith a sharp point-a typical Kashan tech-nique. The effect created by this dense orna-mentation is of a unified design, with hardlyany of the strong contrasts between light anddark areasso characteristicof the Rayy style.The facial types are, however, very similarto those on Rayy luster pottery, and bothwaresweremade at more or less the same timefor the same Seljuk rulers. A resemblancecanalso be found between the personsrepresentedon this and other Kashan luster pieces and

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29. Bowl painted in blackandglazed in green,Persian Kashan),xiii century.Diameter88 inches.RogersFund, 63. 6.30. Minai bowl, Persian,dated A.D. 1i86. Diameter 812 inches.FletcherFund, 64.I 78.

figures n Central Asian wall paintings (Figure23) dating back asearly as the eighth century.Once again is demonstrated the extraordinaryimportance of Asian, and especially CentralAsian traditions in the development ofEastern Islamic art.

A particularly ineexampleof Kashan uster-ware (Figure 28) is also one of the earliestknown dated pieces. The shapeis typical, witha low, straight, unglazed foot and steep,straight sides, and so is the decoration of theoutside, consistingof acontinuous row of largecircularleaves, painted in luster on the whitebackground of the glaze. The interior con-tains inscriptions from Persian poetry, eitherwritten in luster or scratched into a lusterground. One of these also contains an Islamicdate that corresponds to A.D. 12IO. Although

dated Kashan pieces are not rare (there aremore than three hundred presently known),this is one of the earliest recorded. It belongsto a group of luster-painted bowls, all madeabout the same time in the same workshop,and all employing similarband ornaments andinscriptions. The most unusual details of thedecoration are the encircling snakelike drag-ons, a motif well known in other forms ofSeljuk art but rather rarein pottery painting.All the pieces of the group, however, displaythe motif, probably indicating that they weredecorated by a single artist.Another characteristic Kashan pattern isrepresented by a large luster-painted plate(Figure 26), of a type not previously in thecollection. The decoration consists of scroll-work, with half-palmette leaves and small

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ji ; i - 32. Detail of a miniaturerom Rashidad-Din's Historyojthe World,Persian(Tabriz), earlyxiv century.NumberI653, TopkapiSarayi Library,Istanbul

3 . Minai bowl, Persian, dated A.D. ii87. Diameter 81 inches.FletcherFund, 64.I78.233. Bowl painted in gray and white, Persian Sultanabad

district),xiv century.Diameter814 inches.Purchase,JosephPulitzerBequest, 63.I58.2

birds reserved in the luster ground. Similarbirds, incidentally, appear in the background .of the cross tile. Such birdsare drawn in twodistinct poses, flying andstanding (Figure 25),and are a virtual trademark of the Kashanworkshops. Although the plate is not itselfdated, it can be accurately placed. Anotherlarge plate (Figure 27), dated I2II, has analmost identical pattern, plus a central medal-lion with two seated figures similar to thoseon the cross tile. The same motifs appear onthe cover of a small luster-painted box in thecollection of A. U. Pope, dated I219, and onanother bowl in the State Museum in Berlin-Dahlem, dated 1217. It is quite likely that ourplate, and possibly our cross tile as well, weremade about the same time: that is, the seconddecade of the thirteenth century.


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OPPOSITE:34, 35. Bowl painted in blue and black, Persian Aleshhed),XVI-XVI century.Diameter 155 inches.Gift of Nasli Heeramaneclk,4.10o

36. Bottlepainted in blue and blacl, Persian Meshhed), xvi-xVII century.Height I1 inches.FletcherFund, 64.58

Such comparisons can also help identifypieces that are not decorated in luster. Al-though Kashan is particularly known for itsluster ware, it produced a number of othertypes of pottery as well. The design on a smallbowl painted in black under a green glaze(Figure 29) is of particular interest, as it pro-vides further evidence that a large group ofsimilar vessels came from the Kashan work-shops. Reserved in the black background arefour birds, which on close inspection revealthemselves as the same type that appear onKashan luster ware. The very fact that theyarerepresented n reserve,rather than paintedon a light ground, is a further similaritywithluster technique. When, finally, the shapeandfine white ceramicbody of the bowl are takeninto consideration, there can be little doubtthat it was made in Kashan, probably in theearly part of the thirteenth century.Kashan can with certainty be identified asthe location of the workshop that producedtwo polychrome overglaze painted bowls ofthe so-called Minai type (Figures 30, 3i).Minai ware, besides being one of the mostbeautiful formsof pottery made in the Islamicworld, is extremely interesting for its reflec-tion of wall painting and text illustration, ofwhich, as stated before, little has survivedfrom before the thirteenth century. Popularall through the twelfth and thirteenth cen-turies but probably out of fashion after 1300,it poses many problemsof dating and attribu-tion. The two bowls recently acquired havethe distinction of being signed by an artistwho added to his name the nisbah(indicationof place of origin) al-Kashani. One of thebowls, which is dated i86, bears the full sig-nature of a painter called Abu Zayd. In theinscription of the second bowl, dated 1187,the name has been destroyed, but the nisbahal-Kashani remains intact, and it is likely, tojudge from the style of decoration and theclose date, that the piece is also the work ofAbu Zayd. With this information these bowlsare of supreme importance as documents forthe identification of Minai ware from Kashan.

Toward the end of the thirteenth centurypottery making in Persia declined, althoughthe Kashan workshops continued their activ-


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ity into the fourteenth.Later in the four-teenthcentury herewasapparently revival,fora newtypeof ware,notpreviouslyknownand difficult o placeanddate exactly,cameinto existence.Sincemanypiecesof thisnewtype have been found in the vicinity of themodern town of Sultanabad, he pottery isusuallyreferred o as Sultanabadware, or,more correctly,Sultanabad-districtare. Itis distinguished y its heavy pottingand bythe use of a thick, translucent lazeover de-signs that in some areasare slightly raised.This reliefeffectis due to the heavyapplica-tionof whiteandgraypigments, speciallynfloralpatterns; lthough omebowlsaredeco-ratedwith abstractinearpatterns,hedesignsusuallyconsistof foliage blue and greenaswell as white or light gray irregularlydis-tributedover the entiresurface.Against hisbackground,or within medallions,animalsor, more rarely,humanfiguresappear.Al-though probablymade in great quantities,well-decorated nd well-preserved xamplesare rare. One such small bowl (Figure33) istypical n shapeandin its backgroundesignof small,orderly hrubs,but the figure n thecenteris highly unusual.It is a birdwith ahumanhead,wearingwhat ooks ike afeathercap resemblinghose worn by the Mongols(Figure32). It is likelythat this sa represen-tationof a harpy, ike thatof the Seljukbowl(Figure 14), but for this period and mediumthe subject s ratherpuzzling.Becauseof itsfinestate of preservation, igh qualityof de-sign,and iconographic eculiarity, hispiecemakesan especiallyvaluableadditionto oursmallgroupof Sultanabad-districtares.Our two finalexamples omefromthe Sa-favidperiodof thesixteenthand seventeenthcenturies,whenPersiawasunitedandpacifiedundera nativedynastyandenjoyeda periodof greatartisticactivityin all fields.Paradox-ically, Safavidpottery is rareeven by com-parisonwithsomeof thescarcerypesof earlypottery.Our collection f Safavidpieces singeneralsmall,and any addition s thereforeof great

importance.The firstof theseacquisitionssa bottle (Figure 36) with a slightlymoldedwhite ground,its designa lively patternofhunters amid elaboratefoliage, painted inblackand blue. The other is a large bowl(Figures34, 35) with a magnificentloralde-sign,alsopainted n blackand cobalt blueona white groundand coveredwith a brillianttranslucent laze. Both probablybelong tothe earlierpart of the seventeenthcentury,when the cities of Kerman n the southeastand Meshhed n the northeastwere the lead-ing ceramic entersof Persia,and both followthe long traditionof blue and whitepottery,which had a revivalat this time.

Throughhis ingenuityand inventiveness,hisoriginality ndunmatchedbilityto createconstantlynew shapes,new techniques,newformsofdecoration,heMuslimpottercountsamong the greatestcraftsmenof this mostearthyof arts. Justas he wasfrequently n-spiredby thepotteryof othercountries,not-ably China,he influencedwith his work theformsof ceramicmakingelsewhere.The styleof cobalt-bluedecoration, or instance,wasfirst developedin Persia and carried fromthereto the Far East. In fact, it appearshatpolychromepainted decoration,which waspracticed n Chinaonly fromthe thirteenthcenturyon, wasinitiatedby Islamicpotters.The impactof Muslim ceramics n the pot-teriesofEurope, talyandSpain nparticular,iswellknown.Byzantineceramicsredirectlyderivedfrom Syrianand Persianpottery ofthe earliest periods, and the potteries ofFaenza, Padua,and Gubbio owe an undis-puted debt to the art of the Muslimpotter.Islamicpottery thereforeoccupiesa centralposition n the historyof ceramicmakingofmodern imes.REFERENCESThe standardhandbooks n Islamicceramicsare by ArthurLane: EarlyIslamicPottery:Mesopotamia,Egypt, and Persia, London,I947; and Later IslamicPottery:Persia,Syria,Egypt,Turkey,London, I957.

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Documents

Grube, Ernst J. - The Art of Islamic Pottery (the Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, V.23, No.6, February 1965)