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Round dish with splashes of green glaze

This round ceramic dish has a small base. Its sides extend straight out from the base and then curve upward, eventually angling out into a convex shape that gives the bowl a curved rim. It is covered with an off-white glaze. Around the rim of the bowl are eight sections of green glaze that appear to drip down toward the center of the bowl, swirling together in the middle. The outside of the bowl is also covered in scattered areas of dripping green glaze.

Identification and Creation

Object Number
2002.50.104
Title
Dish with Green Splashed Decoration
Classification
Vessels
Work Type
vessel
Date
9th century
Places
Creation Place: Middle East, Iraq
Period
Abbasid period
Persistent Link
https://hvrd.art/o/147861

Location

Location
Level 2, Room 2550, Art from Islamic Lands, The Middle East and North Africa
View this object's location on our interactive map

Physical Descriptions

Medium
Buff-colored earthenware with patches of green (copper) running in clear lead glaze
Technique
Glazed
Dimensions
4.1 x 21.2 cm (1 5/8 x 8 3/8 in.)

Provenance

Recorded Ownership History
[Galerie für Griechische, Römische und Byzantinische Kunst, Frankfurt, 1972], sold; to Stanford and Norma Jean Calderwood, Belmont, MA (1972-2002), gift; to Harvard Art Museums, 2002.

Acquisition and Rights

Credit Line
Harvard Art Museums/Arthur M. Sackler Museum, The Norma Jean Calderwood Collection of Islamic Art
Accession Year
2002
Object Number
2002.50.104
Division
Asian and Mediterranean Art
Contact
am_asianmediterranean@harvard.edu
Permissions

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Descriptions

Description
This green-splashed dish,represents the glazed luxury wares being produced in Abbasid Iraq by the late eighth to early ninth century. The rounded walls and slightly everted rim of this dish recall those of Tang white wares. Whether the production of color-splashed ceramics in the Islamic world was an independent development or was also inspired by wares imported from China is still unresolved. A copper oxide was applied in patches on the exterior and interior rim of this dish before it was fired upright. The green patches flowed freely in the clear glaze, pooling at the center into a shape serendipitously resembling a lotus blossom. Ceramics with colorants running in a clear glaze were broadly popular and widely produced in the early Islamic era; wasters have been found from Afrasiyab, in Uzbekistan, to Fustat, in Egypt.Because this visual effect could be achieved through various techniques, assigning place and time of production to these wares is often difficult.On the basis of its well-formed foot, its finely potted profile with recurved rim, and its lack of secondary incised decoration, it is attributed to Iraq.

Published Catalogue Text: In Harmony: The Norma Jean Calderwood Collection of Islamic Art , written 2013
3

Dish with green splashed decoration
Iraq, Abbasid period, 9th century[1]
Buff-colored earthenware with patches of green (copper) running in clear lead glaze
4.1 × 21.2 cm (1 5/8 × 8 3/8 in.)
2002.50.104

Published: McWilliams 2002a, 13, fig. 4.

Although the collection contains important pre-Islamic antecedents in the Ziwiye wares (cats. 1 and 2), Norma Jean Calderwood’s initial focus was on the glazed ceramics of the Islamic era. This green-splashed dish, the earliest Islamic ceramic vessel in the collection,[2] represents the glazed luxury wares being produced in Abbasid Iraq by the late eighth to early ninth century. The rounded walls and slightly everted rim of this dish recall those of Tang white wares. Whether the production of color-splashed ceramics in the Islamic world was an independent development or was also inspired by wares imported from China is still unresolved.[3] A copper oxide was applied in patches on the exterior and interior rim of this dish before it was fired upright. The green patches flowed freely in the clear glaze, pooling at the center into a shape serendipitously resembling a lotus blossom.

Ceramics with colorants running in a clear glaze were broadly popular and widely produced in the early Islamic era; wasters have been found from Afrasiyab, in Uzbekistan, to Fustat, in Egypt.[4] Because this visual effect could be achieved through various techniques, assigning place and time of production to these wares is often difficult.[5] Calderwood acquired this dish as an example of eastern Iranian splash ware, but on the basis of its well-formed foot, its finely potted profile with recurved rim, and its lack of secondary incised decoration, it is here attributed to Iraq.

Mary McWilliams

[1] The bowl is of “ancient origin,” according to the results of thermoluminescence analysis carried out at the Research Laboratory of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, in 1973.
[2] Calderwood acquired a small dish, cat. 50, as an example of the green-glazed wares of the late Umayyad period, but it was more likely created in early modern Vietnam or China, according to Robert D. Mowry.
[3] Watson 2004, 47, 171, 199.
[4] Wilkinson 1973, 54.
[5] See Grube 1994, 33.

Publication History

  • Mary McWilliams, "With Quite Different Eyes: The Norma Jean Calderwood Collection of Islamic Art", Apollo, ed. David Ekserdjian (November 2002), vol. CLVI no. 490, pp. 12-16, p.13, fig. 4
  • Mary McWilliams, ed., In Harmony: The Norma Jean Calderwood Collection of Islamic Art, exh. cat., Harvard Art Museums (Cambridge, MA, 2013), pp. 171-172, cat. 3, ill.

Exhibition History

Subjects and Contexts

  • Google Art Project

Verification Level

This record has been reviewed by the curatorial staff but may be incomplete. Our records are frequently revised and enhanced. For more information please contact the Division of Asian and Mediterranean Art at am_asianmediterranean@harvard.edu