Harvard Art Museums / Fogg Museum | Busch-Reisinger Museum | Arthur M. Sackler Museum

Object Number

2002.50.73

Title

Bowl with Seated Couple

Classification

Vessels

Work Type

vessel

Date

12th-13th century

Places

Creation Place: Middle East, Iran, Kashan

Period

Seljuk-Atabeg period

Persistent Link

https://hvrd.art/o/165185

Medium

Fritware painted with luster (copper and silver) over white lead alkali glaze opacified with tin

Technique

Lusterware

Dimensions

9.5 x 21.1 cm (3 3/4 x 8 5/16 in.)

Credit Line

Harvard Art Museums/Arthur M. Sackler Museum, The Norma Jean Calderwood Collection of Islamic Art

Accession Year

2002

Object Number

2002.50.73

Division

Asian and Mediterranean Art

Contact

am_asianmediterranean@harvard.edu

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Description

On the interior of this bowl, a seated couple flanks a central, checkered tree, which— together with the fish swimming below and a busy network of thin, curving vines—conveys the idea of a garden setting. Along the walls of the bowl are six roundels decorated alternately with harpies and human figures. Like birds, harpies are commonly found in Persian Islamic ceramics and usually carry auspicious connotations. The area just below the rim is decorated with a pseudo-inscription with plaited verticals. The exterior features double vertical lines bracketing loosely painted scrolls. Recent museum conservation of the bowl has showed it to be made up of fifteen major fragments, but all join fairly smoothly, indicating that nothing has been lost from the original object. The luster is brilliant and reddish in tone.

Published Catalogue Text: In Harmony: The Norma Jean Calderwood Collection of Islamic Art , written 2013
31

Bowl with seated couple
Iran, Seljuk-Atabeg period, 12th–13th century[1]
Fritware painted with luster (copper and silver) over white lead alkali glaze opacified with tin
9.5 × 21.1 cm (3 3/4 × 8 5/16 in.)
2002.50.73

On the interior of this bowl, a seated couple flanks a central, checkered tree, which— together with the fish swimming below and a busy network of thin, curving vines— conveys the idea of a garden setting. Along the walls of the bowl are six roundels decorated alternately with harpies and human figures. Like birds, harpies are commonly found in Persian Islamic ceramics and usually carry auspicious connotations. The area just below the rim is decorated with a pseudo-inscription with plaited verticals. The exterior features double vertical lines bracketing loosely painted scrolls. Recent museum conservation of the bowl has showed it to be made up of fifteen major fragments, but all join fairly smoothly, indicating that nothing has been lost from the original object. The luster is brilliant and reddish in tone.

Ayşin Yoltar-Yıldırım

[1] This bowl is of “ancient origin,” according to the results of thermoluminescence analysis carried out by the Research Laboratory of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, in 1973.

Holly Salmon, "A Comparative Analysis of Lusterware from the Calderwood Collection of Islamic Art" (thesis (certificate in conservation), Straus Center for Conservation and Technical Studies, June 2003), Unpublished, pp. 1-54 passim

Mary McWilliams, ed., In Harmony: The Norma Jean Calderwood Collection of Islamic Art, exh. cat., Harvard Art Museums (Cambridge, MA, 2013), p. 190, cat. 31, ill.

In Harmony: The Norma Jean Calderwood Collection of Islamic Art, Harvard Art Museums, Cambridge, 01/31/2013 - 06/01/2013

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