Earthenware bowl, covered with a white slip and painted in black, yellow, and green under a transparent glaze
Eastern Iran, Nishapur; 10th century
H: 8.5; Diam: 22 cm
This colorful bowl belongs to a special group of ceramics that was produced at the same time as slip-painted types that were far simpler with regard to both color and motif. A horseman in chain mail lifting a sphere high in his right hand is riding off with something that could be viewed as a gigantic hunting falcon. He is surrounded by a dense forest of naturalistic, abstract, and non-figurative elements.
A great deal of energy has been expended on debating whether these bowls hark back to pre-Islamic traditions or were made for a specific social or ethnic group in Nishapur – but we still know nothing.
Inv. no. 25/1968
Published in:
C .L. Davids Samling. Fjerde Del : Jubilæumsskrift 1945-70, København 1970, cat.no. 23, pp. 144-145;
André Leth: Davids Samling. Islamisk kunst = The David Collection. Islamic Art, København 1975, p. 22;
Annika Richert (ed.): Islam: konst och kultur / art and culture, Statens historiska museum, Stockholm 1985, p. 115, cat.no. 26;
Kjeld von Folsach: Islamic art. The David Collection, Copenhagen 1990, cat.no.76;
Kjeld von Folsach, Torben Lundbæk and Peder Mortensen (eds.): Sultan, Shah and Great Mughal: the history and culture of the Islamic world, The National Museum, Copenhagen 1996, cat.no. 240;
Kjeld von Folsach: Art from the World of Islam in The David Collection, Copenhagen 2001, cat.no. 123;
Eric Delpont (ed.): Chevaux et cavaliers arabes dans les arts d'Orient et d'Occident, Institut du monde arabe, Paris 2002, cat.no. 126, p. 166;
