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Bowl with image of bird and spiral designs

This bowl has a wide, short cylindrical base and tall, fairly straight sides. The outside is painted with stripes in teal, yellow, and black. The center of the inside of the bowl features a painting of a bird in profile with a large eye pointed at the viewer. It has a crest on its head and a large tail with green and yellow feathers. Geometric designs in black-brown, yellow. and green surround the bird. Near the rim is a circular border of yellow and black spirals with black lines at the inner and outer edges.

Gallery Text

Following the Prophet Muhammad’s example, the Islamic polity, or caliphate, was ruled by a political and religious leader titled the caliph, or “successor” to the Prophet. Muslims eventually developed a monarchic system for controlling the succession of caliphs. The four centuries of the early Islamic era witnessed the establishment—and unraveling—of the universal caliphates of the Umayyad (661–750) and Abbasid (750–1258) dynasties.

The range of the objects in this case illustrates the Islamic empire’s rapid expansion and the assimilation of peoples and artistic practices. A hot-worked glass vessel and a green-glazed pottery cup demonstrate continuity with late Roman traditions, while the figural imagery and inscriptions on tenth-century polychrome pottery vessels from eastern Iran underscore the continued vitality of pre-Islamic cultural traditions there. The creation of coinage bearing only inscriptions at the turn of the seventh century signals the unprecedented stature that Arabic calligraphy acquired, as the script itself became a symbol of the faith. Arabic inscriptions decorating ceramics produced in Central Asia proclaim the owner’s literacy and Muslim identity.

The freely painted ceramics associated through excavation with the city of Nishapur, in northeastern Iran, reveal the diverse nature of Samanid society. Written in the middle of this bowl is the word for “eye” or “fount” in Syriac, the liturgical language of the Nestorian Christians, who maintained a bishopric in Nishapur. In early Christian imagery, a peacock drinking from a fount symbolized the revival and rebirth offered by baptism.

Identification and Creation

Object Number
2002.50.69
Title
Small Bowl with Peacock
Classification
Vessels
Work Type
vessel
Date
10th century
Places
Creation Place: Middle East, Iran, Nishapur
Period
Samanid period
Persistent Link
https://hvrd.art/o/160456

Location

Location
Level 2, Room 2550, Art from Islamic Lands, The Middle East and North Africa
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Physical Descriptions

Medium
Buff-colored earthenware painted with black (manganese), yellow (lead-tin), and green (copper) under clear lead glaze
Technique
Underglazed, painted
Dimensions
6.7 x 16.2 cm (2 5/8 x 6 3/8 in.)

Provenance

Recorded Ownership History
[Hadji Baba Rabbi House of Antiquities,Teheran, 1973], sold; to Stanford and Norma Jean Calderwood, Belmont, MA (by 1973-2002), gift; to Harvard Art Museums, 2002.

Acquisition and Rights

Credit Line
Harvard Art Museums/Arthur M. Sackler Museum, The Norma Jean Calderwood Collection of Islamic Art
Accession Year
2002
Object Number
2002.50.69
Division
Asian and Mediterranean Art
Contact
am_asianmediterranean@harvard.edu
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Descriptions

Description
A prominent bird facing left dominates the interior of this small bowl. The artist has whimsically concocted a creature with a trilobed crest, a cere (protrusion above the bill), rings of multicolored feathers around the neck and breast, and a yellow wing. The bird’s salient feature, however, is a fan-shaped tail, which above all else suggests that it is a peacock. There is a single, legible inscription in Syriac meaning “eye” or “fount” between the bird’s back and tail. On the upper walls beneath the rim, a band of scrolling triangular leaves is bordered by black lines.
No slip is detectable over the light buff ceramic body of the bowl. Except for its flat, slightly concave base, which is only partially glazed, it appears to have been covered in a clear glaze. Its condition is difficult to assess, because much of the interior surface is coated with a modern varnish. It is clearly fragmentary, reassembled from numerous small pieces, and has considerable overpainting along the rim, the scrolling band, and the lower body of the peacock.

Published Catalogue Text: In Harmony: The Norma Jean Calderwood Collection of Islamic Art , written 2013
17

Small bowl with peacock
Iran, Nishapur, Samanid period, 10th century[1]
Buff-colored earthenware painted with black (manganese), yellow (lead-tin), and green (copper) under clear lead glaze
6.7 × 16.2 cm (2 5/8 × 6 3/8 in.)
2002.50.69

Published: McWilliams 2002a, 12, fig. 3; McWilliams 2004, 4, fig. 4.

A prominent bird facing left dominates the interior of this small bowl. The artist has whimsically concocted a creature with a trilobed crest, a cere (protrusion above the bill), rings of multicolored feathers around the neck and breast, and a yellow wing. The bird’s salient feature, however, is a fan-shaped tail, which above all else suggests that it is a peacock.[2] There is a single, legible inscription in Syriac between the bird’s back and tail: ʿaynā, meaning “eye” or “fount.” On the upper walls beneath the rim, a band of scrolling triangular leaves is bordered by black lines.

No slip is detectable over the light buff ceramic body of the bowl. Except for its flat, slightly concave base, which is only partially glazed, it appears to have been covered in a clear glaze. Its condition is difficult to assess, because much of the interior surface is coated with a modern varnish. It is clearly fragmentary, reassembled from numerous small pieces, and has considerable overpainting along the rim, the scrolling band, and the lower body of the peacock.

Mary McWilliams

[1] The bowl was last fired between 700 and 1200 years ago, according to the results of thermoluminescence analysis carried out by Oxford Authentication Ltd. in 2011.
[2] See, in this catalogue, Oya Pancaroğlu’s essay, “Feasts of Nishapur: Cultural Resonances of Tenth-Century Ceramic Production in Khurasan,” 25–35.

Publication History

  • Mary McWilliams, "With Quite Different Eyes: The Norma Jean Calderwood Collection of Islamic Art", Apollo, ed. David Ekserdjian (November 2002), vol. CLVI no. 490, pp. 12-16, p.12, fig. 3
  • Mary McWilliams, Closely Focused, Intensely Felt: Selections from the Norma Jean Calderwood Collection of Islamic Art, brochure, Harvard University Art Museums (Cambridge, MA, 2004)
  • Mary McWilliams, ed., In Harmony: The Norma Jean Calderwood Collection of Islamic Art, exh. cat., Harvard Art Museums (Cambridge, MA, 2013), p. 32, cat. 16, ill.; p. 180, cat. 16, ill.

Exhibition History

Subjects and Contexts

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Verification Level

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