Ceramics

1) Cobalt-painted Bowl, Iraqi, IX cen., Harris Brisbane Dick Fund
2) Ceramica Invetriata  policroma tipo “Sari”, Iran X-XI secolo

Islamic ceramic pottery was and still is very popular all over the world. Arabs are using majolica (type of the ceramics), which has a smooth surface, lustre, thin walls covered with coloured glazes, and they have decorative relief adornments. Traditionally, artists would write phrases form Suras or Hadiths on the inner side of the plate or a bowl. With the spread of Islam, artists started to depict animals and humans.

The ninth century Iraqi Cobalt-painted bowl represents a traditional way of decorating. It is decorated with two repetitive phrases right in the middle of the bowl. The sides of it have circles that go on the outer side of the bowl. There are also two semicircular lines, as a contour of each circle (The Art of Islamic Pottery Ernst J. Grube p. 209-228, p. 210 – the sketch, The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin © 1965 The Metropolitan Museum of Art).  We can compare it with Iranian work of a later period. It is also a bowl, but instead of the writings we see the painting of a bird, that is coloured in with very bright colours, such as: orange, yellow and brown. The neck of the bird is decorated with horizontal lines, which create sort of a collar. The rest of the bird’s body is covered with dark spots with white dots inside. Around the bird we see flower-like drawings, which are connected to each other.

Mattonella a forma stellare, dipinta a lustro, dicante lung oil bordo un’iscrizione coranica, che cita quasi per interno la sura CX (Iran, Kashan, XIII secolo, Museo Nazionale D’arte Orientale ‘Giuseppe Tucci’, inv. N. 90 )

We also can find the representation of animals on the tiles. Tiles were usually used to decorate the floors. One of the examples that we could see on the exhibition was the tile in a shape of the octagonal star. The artist used only three colours: brown for the drawing, and blue and white for the writing on the side. In the middle Islamic artists depicted flowers and in the flowers we can see three animals that look like rabbits. Those animals have long ears, their bodies are covered with little spots and they are depicted, as if one is walking after the other. On the outline we can see writing from Sura: “In the name of merciful God, the Merciful! When God will give the triumph and victory and see that people enter God's religion in droves, then celebrate the praises of thy Lord and ask him for forgiveness, because He is the One who forgives a lot!” 

Elena Migurenko