Ewer, possibly a pilgrim flask

• Accession Number:AKM540
• Place:Syria or Iran
• Dimensions:19 cm x 8 cm x 4 cm
• Date:9th Century
• Materials and Technique:Earthenware, moulded and with applied decoration under a transparent green glaze

• 4. Bellerive Room

  Stop #1 of Bellerive Room Highlights

   

  Congratulations — you have found one of the oldest objects in the Museum! To create this piece, the potter used a mold to shape the clay into the two halves of the pitcher, joined them together, and then added the spout, the handle, and a decoration of a bird. Finally, he glazed the piece in green. An inscription running vertically below the handle might give the name of the potter: the word ‘aml [meaning “work of”] can be deciphered, but the following word is unclear.

   

  The selection of ceramics in the Museum’s Collection was intended to showcase the most important developments in materials and glazes from the 8th to the 17th centuries across the broad geography of the Islamic world. Like many collections of Islamic art, it focuses on types of pottery that were available on the art market when Prince Sadruddin was collecting, and it highlights certain types of decoration that were particularly popular among collectors, such as starkly modern black and white bowls from the northeastern Iran and bright and colourful plates from Iznik, Turkey. It is also important to note that ceramics were often associated with certain cities in order to give them a recognizable “brand.” Today, as more controlled excavations take place, we are expanding our knowledge about the wide number of places where ceramics were made, and we can be more precise about their dating.

   

  — Marika Sardar

   

  
  Next up in the Bellerive Room Highlights Tour:

   

    Bowl with Horse, Rider and Bird,
    AKM753

While pilgrim flask shapes can be traced in the pre-Islamic Iranian world to as early as the second millennium BCE (Fehervari 2000, p. 29), flasks covered in glaze date to the later pre-Islamic Parthian (2nd c. BCE - 3rd c. CE) and Sasanian (2nd-7th c. CE) periods. According to Oliver Watson, in the early Islamic period, three distinct trends of glazed pottery appear, including the continuation of pre-Islamic glazed ceramics, the invention of new glazed ceramics, and the addition of new glazes on previously unglazed wares (Watson 2004, pp. 161-62). The present bottle falls within the first category: it has an oval form, its surface decorated with impressed and carved patterns and featuring the figure of a bird with a fish-like tail. The existence of an Arabic inscription in kufic, possibly a blessing, distinguishes the flask from its pre-Islamic models; the outline format of the calligraphy can be found on early ceramic dishes from this part of the world (see, for example, a dish in the David Collection, Copenhagen, published in von Folsach 2001, p. 129 [no. 99, inv. no. 50/1999]; and one in the British Museum, London, published in Pancaroglu 2007, p. 29 [fig. 14, inv. no. OA1963.4-24.1]). The ceramic technique and bird motif, however, pre-date the Islamic period. Representations of birds in profile may have been inspired by Sasanian prototypes of different media (Auld 2005, p. 5) (see Harper 1978, pp. 63-65 [nos. 19, 21, 26, 49, and 77]). The shape of the present flask is rare among the variety of Islamic pilgrim flasks; the closest parallel found for it so far is also a one-handled vessel with a design of birds carved in relief, which is in a Japanese private collection.

References
Géza Fehérvári, Ceramics of the Islamic world in the Tareq Rajab Museum. London 2000. ISBN: 9781860644306
Oliver Watson, Ceramics from Islamic Lands. London, 2004. ISBN: 9780500976340
Kjeld von Folsach, Art from the World of Islam in The David Collection. Copenhagen: Davids Samling, 2001. ISBN: 9788788464214
Oya Pancaroblu, Perpetual Glory. Medieval Islamic Ceramics from the Harvey B. Plotnick Collection. Chicago 2007. ISBN: 9780300119435