Bowl

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This object is a Gateway object. Gateway objects are significant artefacts in the collection and are used to represent and introduce bigger subjects and themes.

Description:

Ceramic bowl with kufic inscription; reddish earthenware body, covered in a white slip with inscription painted in black slip under a transparent glaze.

Object type:	bowl
Museum number:	1958,1218.1
Culture/period:	Samanid dynasty
Date:	10thC
Production place:	Made in: Nishapur (?)
Materials:	pottery
Technique:	slipped, glazed
Dimensions:	Diameter: 34.60 cm Height: 11.00 cm (ca)
Inscriptions:	Inscription details: inscription (rim) in Arabic in Kufic script Inscription quoted: Inscription translation: He who speaks, his speech is silver, but silence is a ruby, with good health and prosperity
Location:	7
Exhibition history:	Exhibited: 2000 12 Jun-17 Sept, St Petersburg, The Hermitage 'In the name of the beneficent and merciful' 1999-2000 15 Dec-24 Apr, Amsterdam, De Nieuwe Kerk Museum, 'In the name of the beneficent and merciful' Exhibition: "Africa the Art of a continent", New-York, Guggenheim Museum; 4 Jun 1996
Acquisition names:	Purchased from: H Khan Moruf
Acquisition date:	1958

Curator's comments:

The inscription may have been chosen as much for its content as the regularity of its ascenders which form a series of radial the script is paralleled most closely in early 12th century decorative book hands. An alternative translation is: ‘Well-wrought words are like silver on the tongue / But silence is a pearl, with rubies hung. With good health and prosperity.’ Deciphered by Abdullah Ghouchani.Translated by Michael Cooperson. Further reading: E. J. Grube and others, Cobalt and Lustre: The first Centuries of Islamic Pottery (London, Nour Foundation, 1994). C.K. Wilkinson, Nishapur: pottery of the Early (Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1973).