Ceramic dish
London, England, United Kingdom
The British Museum
About The British Museum, London
Hegira 6th century /AD 12th century
1923.2-17.1
Blue, green and manganese-purple glazed and incised pottery.
Diameter 41.5 cm
Ayyubid
Raqqa, northern Syria.
A large round ceramic dish glazed in blue, green and manganese-purple with incised decoration, known as 'laqabi ware','en');" style="text-decoration: underline;">laqabi ware', or polychrome carved pottery. The figure dominating the centre of the dish is a harpy, a fantastical animal with the body of a bird and a human head. The first stage in the production process comprised cutting the overall design into the unfired ceramic: the harpy, the swirling vegetal scroll behind the figure, and the border pattern. After the first firing, the glaze was applied to the incised lines which were intended to stop the glaze from running. The design around the border is a simplified version of the rope motif typical of 'laqabi ware','en');" style="text-decoration: underline;">laqabi ware' ceramic dishes. Dishes of this type would have been used as tableware and were a cheaper alternative to metal plates and bowls.
View Short DescriptionA large, round ceramic dish with a picture of a harpy, a fantastical animal with the body of the bird and a human head. The very specific technique of this dish – with incised decoration and polychrome glaze – is known as ‘laqabi ware’, and was produced in Raqqa, Syria.
By comparison with other objects excavated in Syria.
Purchased in 1923.
Lane (1947) attributed 'laqabi ware' to Iran, but Porter (1981) has shown that in terms of shape, body and design this type of ceramic was more likely to have been produced in northern Syria.
Grube, E. J., and others, Cobalt and Lustre: the First Centuries of Islamic Pottery, London, 1994, pp. 249–57.
Lane, A., Early Islamic Pottery, 1947, p.35.
Porter, V., Medieval Syrian Pottery, Oxford, 1981, p.35–6.
Emily Shovelton "Ceramic dish" in Discover Islamic Art, Museum With No Frontiers, 2024. https://islamicart.museumwnf.org/database_item.php?id=object;ISL;uk;Mus01;14;en
Prepared by: Emily ShoveltonEmily Shovelton
Emily Shovelton is a historian of Islamic art. She studied history of art at Edinburgh University before completing an MA in Islamic and Indian art at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) in London. Since graduating she has worked on a number of projects at the British Museum. Other recent work includes editing and writing for a digital database of architectural photographs at the British Library. She is currently working on a Ph.D. on “Sultanate Painting in 15th-century India and its relationship to Persian, Mamluk and Indian Painting”, to be completed at SOAS in 2006. A paper on Sultanate painting given at the Conference of European Association of South Asian Archaeologists, held in the British Museum in July 2005, is due to be published next year.
Copyedited by: Mandi GomezMandi Gomez
Amanda Gomez is a freelance copy-editor and proofreader working in London. She studied Art History and Literature at Essex University (1986–89) and received her MA (Area Studies Africa: Art, Literature, African Thought) from SOAS in 1990. She worked as an editorial assistant for the independent publisher Bellew Publishing (1991–94) and studied at Bookhouse and the London College of Printing on day release. She was publications officer at the Museum of London until 2000 and then took a role at Art Books International, where she worked on projects for independent publishers and arts institutions that included MWNF’s English-language editions of the books series Islamic Art in the Mediterranean. She was part of the editorial team for further MWNF iterations: Discover Islamic Art in the Mediterranean Virtual Museum and the illustrated volume Discover Islamic Art in the Mediterranean.
True to its ethos of connecting people through the arts, MWNF has provided Amanda with valuable opportunities for discovery and learning, increased her editorial experience, and connected her with publishers and institutions all over the world. More recently, the projects she has worked on include MWNF’s Sharing History Virtual Museum and Exhibition series, Vitra Design Museum’s Victor Papanek and Objects of Desire, and Haus der Kulturen der Welt’s online publication 2 or 3 Tigers and its volume Race, Nation, Class.
MWNF Working Number: UK1 17
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