A Large Nishapur Figural Bowl, Central Asia, 10th Century

of shallow form with straight walls which step down to a low foot, decorated with coloured slips with the figure of a man on horseback , wearing high boots and an elaborate headdress, against a background of hatched panels

In generally good condition, restoration with associated retouching, surface wear and abrasion associated with age, as viewed.
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The equestrian figure depicted on this unusual dish can be related to the standard Sassanian iconographic type of the hunter-rider, of which numerous examples survive in precious metal. Richard Ettinghausen was the first to make this connection, arguing that the cavaliers and huntsmen on Samanid buffware mark the vestiges of Sassanian royal iconography in which the royal personage projects his power through the symbol of the hunt.

The composition on this dish might lack the grandeur of Sassanian and post-Sassanian silver dishes - there is no bloodletting or dynamic movement - but, nonetheless, something of the hieratic, imperial quality of the prototype is retained: the mounted individual has the bearing and trappings of a person of status and power. Teresa Fitzherbert added to the debate by arguing that these compositions need to be interpreted in the context of local festivals, customs and traditions, such as that of the futuwwa, a group of select young men, usually celibate, who followed a strict code of chivalry and engaged in prescribed practices and initiation rites - for instance, they were known to have worn trousers, and Parthian-style boots like the rider depicted here (see Fitzherbert, T., unpublished MA dissertation in the Bodleian Library, Oxford).

These figural motifs and others that appear on tenth-century buffware such as floral and geometric patterns have been unflatteringly labelled as reminiscent of "peasant or folk" art due to their boisterous polychrome designs which contrast so strongly to other ceramic wares from the area with their controlled colouration and empty spaces. The buffwares use a technique that saw green or yellow pigments applied directly to the clay body (sometimes a slip ground is used) over which a thin glaze was poured. Although Nishapur produced a large number of buffware pieces, other centres of production such as Merv and Afrasiyab used the same techniques (Kuwait 2004, p.247-251). Another much smaller bowl with a similar equestrian theme, excavated at Nishapur is in the Metropolitan Museum of Art (see Wilkinson 1973, no.62a, p.45).