Nishapur Type Unglazed Buff Bowl, Khurasan, Medieval Islamic Iran

Near East, Persia, Khurasan, Nishapur, Islamic period. A shallow wheel-thrown bowl of pale buff earthenware, its low walls flaring to a gently everted rim and resting on a small disc foot framed by a crisp turned ridge. The interior rises in an unbroken curve from a slightly domed center, the surface matte and finely granular, tinted ochre and tan by burial. There is no slip, glaze or painted decoration, and the bowl’s interest lies in its simple, economical profile, typical of the domestic wares of medieval Khurasan. Bowls of this size served at table for rice, stews or fruit, and were made in great quantity at Nishapur, one of the major ceramic centers of the eastern Islamic world. Its plain surface marks it as an everyday utility ware rather than the painted pottery for which Nishapur is best known. Nishapur, in the Khurasan province of northeastern Persia, was a Silk Road capital under the Tahirid and Samanid dynasties and one of the most productive pottery centers of the early Islamic period. The Metropolitan Museum's excavations there between 1935 and 1947 recovered tens of thousands of ceramic fragments, establishing the site's celebrated repertoire: black-on-white epigraphic slipwares bearing Kufic aphorisms, polychrome "buffware" with figural and animal imagery, and splashed lead-glazed vessels descended from Tang Chinese models. Alongside these luxury wares the kilns turned out vast quantities of plain, unglazed or thinly slipped domestic pottery of exactly this kind, which rarely enters the literature but formed the bulk of what an ordinary household actually used. The city was sacked by the Mongols in 1221 and never regained its former stature. A Certificate of Authenticity will accompany all winning bids. Item # 205118

Estimate:£168.19

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