This item has been added to the Database within the Explore Islamic Art Collections project. Information is available in: English, Arabic.

Name of Object:

Bowl (badiye)

Location:

Bucharest, Romania

Holding Museum:

The National Museum of Art of Romania

About The National Museum of Art of Romania, Bucharest

Date of Object:

Hegira late 10th – early 11th century / AD late 16th – first quarter of the 17th century

Museum Inventory Number:

20765 / 1754

Material(s) / Technique(s):

Tinned copper, engraved decoration

Dimensions:

Height: 15.4cm, Diameter (of mouth): 25.5cm

Period / Dynasty:

Safavid

Provenance:

Iran

Description:

During the Safavid period this type of vessel was called badiye, an Arabic word used in Persian poetry as early as the thirteenth century to designate wine bowls. The bowl is engraved with horizontal decorative bands, the main register featuring a typically Safavid continuous design of half-palmettes, scrolling vines, and floral motifs. A Persian inscription followed by the name of the owner, Mirza Haydar ibn Khwaja Sultani, is engraved in five cartouches below the rim: ‘O master of the bowl may you forget your sorrow / May the object of your heart’s aspiration for ever be in your fold / As long as the bowl of Heaven and the Sun globe remain / Every sip you taste from this bowl, may it bring you health’ (English version by Assadullah Souren Melikian-Chirvani, in Islamic Metalwork from the Iranian World, 8-18th centuries, London, 1982: 304, no. 134.).The text can be read, literally, as a health wish addressed to the owner of the bowl; at the same time, certain words related to the Sufi technical vocabulary highlight underlying mystical meanings recurrent in Persian poetry.

How date and origin were established:

Stylistic analysis, inscription

How Object was obtained:

Transferred from the Ministry of Finance in 1958.

How provenance was established:

Stylistic analysis

Selected bibliography:

Dunca, M., Scrierea în arta islamică, Bucharest: National Museum of Art of Romania, 2000: 46, cat. no. 16.
Melikian-Chirvani, A.S., Islamic Metalwork from the Iranian World, 8-18th centuries, London: Victoria and Albert Museum, 1982.

Citation of this web page:

Mircea Dunca "Bowl (badiye)" in Explore Islamic Art Collections. Museum With No Frontiers, 2024. https://islamicart.museumwnf.org/database_item.php?id=object;EPM;rm;Mus21;11;en

Prepared by: Mircea Dunca

MWNF Working Number: RO1 11