Earthenware bowl, covered with a white slip and painted in black, yellow, and green under a transparent glaze
Eastern Iran, Nishapur; 10th century
H: 9.5; Diam: 21.8 cm
This colorful and very characteristic bowl belongs together with the bowl,
25/1968, to a special group of ceramics that was produced in Nishapur at the same time as far simpler slip-painted types. The scenes are stylized, but also feature naturalistic elements: Two bearded men are wrestling, surrounded by birds and ornaments.
It has been suggested that the group of bowls harks back to pre-Islamic traditions or was made for a specific social or ethnic group in Nishapur.
Inv. no. 13/1975
Published in:
Kjeld von Folsach: Islamic art. The David Collection, Copenhagen 1990, cat. 75;
Kjeld von Folsach: Art from the World of Islam in The David Collection, Copenhagen 2001, cat. 122;
Anne-Marie Keblow Bernsted: Early Islamic pottery: materials and techniques, London 2003, figs. 18 and 19, pp. 16-17;
Mary McWilliams (ed.): In harmony: the Calderwood Collection of Islamic Art at the Harvard Art Museums, Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Cambridge 2013, p. 30, fig. 5;
Kjeld von Folsach, Joachim Meyer: The Human Figure in Islamic Art – Holy Men, Princes, and Commoners, The David Collection, Copenhagen 2017, cat. 7;
Emine Sonnur Ôzcan: Fârâbî ve Dünyasi, Izmir 2025, resim 5, p. 71;
