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Lot Essay
The inscription reads: Baraka wa yumn wa ni'ma li-sahibihi (Blessing and Good Fortune and [God's] Grace to its Owner).
This unsually large and well-preserved Samanid slip painted pottery bowl uses the simplicity and particularly the strength of the calligraphy to create a very powerful composition. As Oliver Watson notes, the best bowls of this type are "..... of the simplest materials, they are most beautifully made - enormous bowls, precisely thrown and turned to a thinness rarely matched elsewhere in earthenwares....... they are breathtaking to handle. The sophistication and quality of the design also sets them apart: simple lines of calligraphy, in script of a quality that matches the best in any medium of the period .... the telling use of empty space and the subtlety of the rhythm and weight of the calligraphy put them, in spite of their humble materials, into an artistic class higher than any ceramic so far discussed" (Oliver Watson, Ceramics from Islamic Lands, the al-Sabah Collection, London, 2004, p.205).
This unsually large and well-preserved Samanid slip painted pottery bowl uses the simplicity and particularly the strength of the calligraphy to create a very powerful composition. As Oliver Watson notes, the best bowls of this type are "..... of the simplest materials, they are most beautifully made - enormous bowls, precisely thrown and turned to a thinness rarely matched elsewhere in earthenwares....... they are breathtaking to handle. The sophistication and quality of the design also sets them apart: simple lines of calligraphy, in script of a quality that matches the best in any medium of the period .... the telling use of empty space and the subtlety of the rhythm and weight of the calligraphy put them, in spite of their humble materials, into an artistic class higher than any ceramic so far discussed" (Oliver Watson, Ceramics from Islamic Lands, the al-Sabah Collection, London, 2004, p.205).