A fine Minai pottery bowl, Persia, Circa 1200

finely potted, of deep rounded form with everted foot, decorated over the glaze in cobalt blue, turquoise, red, white, grey and black with a central medallion enclosing an enthroned figure holding a cup flanked by paired attendants and birds, the interior walls with a running frieze of seven equestrian figures and two standing figures against a background of scrolling foliage raised in relief, a minor band of linked palmettes below the rim, the exterior with split palmette arabesques and knot-form motifs, the base with painted inventory mark K2626M

ex Parish-Watson Collection

Published: R.Meyer Riefstahl, The Parish-Watson Collection of Mohammadan Potteries, New York, 1922, fig. 55, no.31

breaks and repairs some infill and over-painting concentrated around the rim, touching up to interior and exterior, as viewed
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This bowl exhibits some of the most ambitious techniques developed by the Kashan potters. The use of gilding and relief work, not seen prior to the 12th century in the Islamic world, is in evidence here with raised vegetal motifs and traces of gilding incorporated into the decorative vocabulary.

The advent of overglaze enamelled decoration in the late-12th century effected a transformation of the traditionally limited range of pigments used in the surface embellishment of pottery. Where once the colour range was restricted, potters began to apply enamels in black, red, blues, greens and purples, as well as experimenting with the aforementioned gilding and reliefwork. As a result the artist could produce detailed narrative scenes that are arguably more evocative that those previously seen on Islamic ceramics. The Kashan masters were the self-same potters who worked on lustreware of the 12th and 13th centuries, and as a result both techniques share certain features both technically, such as their second firing, and in their decoration, such as the moon-faced figural type.

The decorative elements of minai ware are thought to originate in textile patterns and book illustrations and the repeated riders around the interior walls and the opposing figures in similar poses applied to the well reinforce this theory. The central enthroned figure, represented clasping a drinking cup flanked by attendants, is shown in the standardised hieratic posture of royalty, whilst the men on horseback are "vividly sketched..., the rapid movements of the swiftly trotting and galloping horses well interpreted... [and] the whole composition [seeming] to represent some equestrian game." (Riefstahl 1922, p.163)