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Lot Essay
In his 1985 publication James Allan links the present bowl to two other examples, one in the Louvre that he illustrates in the article as fig.4, and an undecorated bowl in the Keir Collection (See James Allan in Julian Raby (ed.), The Art of Syria and the Jazira 1100-1250, Oxford Studies in Islamic Art, Oxford, 1985, pp.130-35 and Geza Fehérvári, Islamic Metalwork of the 8th to the 15th Century in the Keir Collection, London, 1976, no.65, pl.19c, no.65, pl.19c). The Louvre bowl is of very similar form with a strong inscription around the rim and a central radiating sun motif very similar to the design of which there are traces in the centre of this bowl. The Louvre and Keir bowls have feet, which are missing here. Fehérvári’s note on the Keir example cites a further example of related but more straight-sided form, in the Museo Civico in Bologna, made for Najm al-Din al-Badri who served at the court of Badr al-Din Lu'lu' in Aleppo 1210-1259 (Francesco Gabrieli and Umberto Scerrato, Gli Arabi in Italia, Milan, 1979, p.508, pls.560-561). All are made of what appears to be a ‘white’ or ‘high-tin’ bronze.
Our bowl, when first published, was catalogued as 12th century; the find site in Hamadan served as an indicator of origin. Subsequent authors have not always agreed. Pope did not clarify at all in the Survey, while James Allan, in the Spink catalogue suggested North-West Iran, an opinion he revised to 13th century Jazira when republishing it in 1985. In 2002 it was attributed to 12th-13th century Northern Syria. When re-attributing the bowl, James Allan did not refer to the Bologna bowl with its almost conical outline strongly reminiscent of Raqqa pottery, but to a group of earlier Fatimid bowls of similarly strongly flaring outline, and in this context it is interesting to note that the plain Keir bowl was purchased in Cairo.
The inlaid decoration is really splendid in its variety and inventiveness. There are nine horsemen wielding a variety of lances, swords, shields, bows and arrows, while one has a falcon on his wrist. These are divided on one side by two figures on an elephant the one in front with an ankus; the one behind with a falcon. The other side has a very unusual figure of a drummer seated on a camel, the large kettle drums hanging on the camel’s flanks. He is the one figure depicted completely in profile, maintaining his steady beat while the others cavort around him. The size of the individual pieces of inlaid silver is relatively large, and gaps in the design are filled with a variety of animals. Occasionally a vine scroll terminates in a rabbit’s head in a way that is seen on various other inlaid brass vessels from both the Jazira and from Khorassan. The liveliness of the depiction is strongly reminiscent of the band of mounted horsemen that run around the centre of the flat side of one of the masterpieces of Jaziran metalwork, the Freer Canteen, attributed to mid-13th century Mosul (Julian Raby, “The Principle of Parsimony and the Problem of the Mosul School of Metalwork”, in Venetia Porter and Mariam Rosser-Owen, Metalwork and Material Culture in the Islamic World, London, 2012, pp.49-52, fig.1.25; also Esin Atil, W.T. Chase and Paul Jett, Islamic Metalwork in the Freer Gallery of Art, Washington DC, 1985, no.17, pp.124-136).
Our bowl, when first published, was catalogued as 12th century; the find site in Hamadan served as an indicator of origin. Subsequent authors have not always agreed. Pope did not clarify at all in the Survey, while James Allan, in the Spink catalogue suggested North-West Iran, an opinion he revised to 13th century Jazira when republishing it in 1985. In 2002 it was attributed to 12th-13th century Northern Syria. When re-attributing the bowl, James Allan did not refer to the Bologna bowl with its almost conical outline strongly reminiscent of Raqqa pottery, but to a group of earlier Fatimid bowls of similarly strongly flaring outline, and in this context it is interesting to note that the plain Keir bowl was purchased in Cairo.
The inlaid decoration is really splendid in its variety and inventiveness. There are nine horsemen wielding a variety of lances, swords, shields, bows and arrows, while one has a falcon on his wrist. These are divided on one side by two figures on an elephant the one in front with an ankus; the one behind with a falcon. The other side has a very unusual figure of a drummer seated on a camel, the large kettle drums hanging on the camel’s flanks. He is the one figure depicted completely in profile, maintaining his steady beat while the others cavort around him. The size of the individual pieces of inlaid silver is relatively large, and gaps in the design are filled with a variety of animals. Occasionally a vine scroll terminates in a rabbit’s head in a way that is seen on various other inlaid brass vessels from both the Jazira and from Khorassan. The liveliness of the depiction is strongly reminiscent of the band of mounted horsemen that run around the centre of the flat side of one of the masterpieces of Jaziran metalwork, the Freer Canteen, attributed to mid-13th century Mosul (Julian Raby, “The Principle of Parsimony and the Problem of the Mosul School of Metalwork”, in Venetia Porter and Mariam Rosser-Owen, Metalwork and Material Culture in the Islamic World, London, 2012, pp.49-52, fig.1.25; also Esin Atil, W.T. Chase and Paul Jett, Islamic Metalwork in the Freer Gallery of Art, Washington DC, 1985, no.17, pp.124-136).