- Identification and Creation
-
- Object Number
- 2002.50.71
- Title
- Small Bowl with Quadruped and Inscription
- Classification
- Vessels
- Work Type
- vessel
- Date
- 10th century
- Places
- Creation Place: Middle East, Iraq, Basra
- Period
- Abbasid period
- Persistent Link
- https://hvrd.art/o/165490
- Physical Descriptions
-
- Medium
- Buff-colored earthenware painted with luster (silver and copper) over white lead alkali glaze opacified with tin
- Technique
- Lusterware
- Dimensions
- 5.6 x 16.2 cm (2 3/16 x 6 3/8 in.)
- Provenance
- [Hadji Baba Rabbi House of Antiquties, Teheran, before 1973], sold; to Stanford and Norma Jean Calderwood, Belmont, MA (by 1973-2002), gift; to Harvard Art Museums, 2002.
- Acquisition and Rights
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- Credit Line
- Harvard Art Museums/Arthur M. Sackler Museum, The Norma Jean Calderwood Collection of Islamic Art
- Accession Year
- 2002
- Object Number
- 2002.50.71
- Division
- Asian and Mediterranean Art
- Contact
- am_asianmediterranean@harvard.edu
- The Harvard Art Museums encourage the use of images found on this website for personal, noncommercial use, including educational and scholarly purposes. To request a higher resolution file of this image, please submit an online request.
- Descriptions
-
- Description
- The Arabic word for “blessing” (baraka) is written twice below the curious four-legged beast that fills this small bowl. The slender legs of the animal and its hooves with dewclaws probably indicate that it was intended to be a deer, a creature admired for its beauty and prized by hunters as game. Its neck, head, and upper back are an early restoration, poorly painted on plaster fill.
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Published Catalogue Text: In Harmony: The Norma Jean Calderwood Collection of Islamic Art , written 2013
7
Small bowl with quadruped and inscription
Iraq, Basra, Abbasid period, 10th century[1]
Buff-colored earthenware painted with luster (silver and copper) over white lead alkali glaze opacified with tin
5.6 × 16.2 cm (2 3/16 × 6 3/8 in.)
2002.50.71
Published: McWilliams 2003, 235, 237, fig. 11; McWilliams 2007, 14, fig. 1.
The Arabic word for “blessing” (baraka) is written twice below the curious four-legged beast that fills this small bowl. The slender legs of the animal and its hooves with dewclaws probably indicate that it was intended to be a deer, a creature admired for its beauty and prized by hunters as game. Its neck, head, and upper back are an early restoration, poorly painted on plaster fill.[2]
Mary McWilliams
[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.
[2] The original head probably resembled that of a beast on a monochrome luster fragment (Benaki Museum, Athens, 231) illustrated in Philon 1980, 151, fig. 335. Philon identifies that animal as a hare.
- Publication History
-
Mary McWilliams, Baraka: Blessings in Clay, The Studio Potter, Mary Barringer (Shelburne Falls, MA, 2007), Vol. 35, No. 2, p 14-19, p. 14, fig. 1
Mary McWilliams, ed., In Harmony: The Norma Jean Calderwood Collection of Islamic Art, exh. cat., Harvard Art Museums (Cambridge, MA, 2013), p. 174, cat. 7, ill.
- Exhibition History
-
Closely Focused, Intensely Felt: Selections from the Norma Jean Calderwood Collection of Islamic Art, Harvard University Art Museums, Cambridge, 08/07/2004 - 01/02/2005
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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