Bowl with Hares

Place of OriginPossibly Baghdad or Basra, Iraq

DateAbbasid Period (750-1258)

DimensionsHeight: 4 in. (10.2 cm)
Rim (Diameter): 8 7/8 in. (22.5 cm)
Base (Diameter): 3 1/2 in. (8.9 cm)

MediumEarthenware, luster-painted on opaque white glaze

ClassificationCeramics

Credit LinePurchased with funds from the Libbey Endowment, Gift of Edward Drummond Libbey

Object number

1941.22

Not on View

DescriptionOutcurved bowl with shallow foot ring; four flanges on the inside. Decorated with five roundels in brownish gold, showing rabbits with palmettes hanging from mouths.

Label TextAround the turn of the 9th century, Abbasid potters in Iraq developed a means of imitating Chinese porcelain by coating earthenware with tin-opacified, white glaze to disguise the yellowish hues of local clay. The shape of this bowl also recalls Chinese ceramics. Meanwhile, the metallic sheen of the copper-toned decoration results from an overglaze luster technique that Abbasid potters borrowed from the Islamic glass industry. Taste for lusterware and its production methods later spread from Iraq to Iran, Egypt, and the Iberian PeninsulaPublished References

An Illustrated Souvenir of the Exhibition of Persian Art, London, London, 1931, p. 53, Ex. #110 A.

"Iranian Pottery," The Toledo Museum of Art: Museum News, December 1941, p. 5, fig. 1.

Exhibition History

London, Royal Academy of Art, Exhibited at International Exhibition of Persian Art, London, 1931, no. 110A.

Houston, Museum of Natural Science; San Francisco, California Academy of Sciences; Pittsburgh, Carnegie Institute; Washington D.C., National Museum of Natural History; Brooklyn Museum, The Heritage of Islam: Patterns and Precision, 1982-1984, no. 149.