Glazed Dish Depicting a Cross-Legged Female Figure - LO.654, Origin: Iraq, Circa: 900 AD to 1000 AD, Dimensions: 2.1" (5.3cm) high x 6.3" (16.0cm) wide, Collection: Islamic Art, Style: Islamic, Medium: Earthenware. Small dish painted in monochrome lustre depicting a woman holding a curious object, which may be a goblet or a musical instrument, with her left hand and a conical object with her right. As it was customary in early lustreware, there is a narrow white margin around the design, while the rest of the surface is filled with dotted zones, recalling the ring-matted background of contemporary metalwork. A band of lunettes decorate the rim, while the exterior is filled with the customary heavy roundels and strokes, that one would find in early lustre vessels from Iraq datable to the mid 10th century. An almost identical dish belongs to the Ashmolean Museum collection of Islamic Art, Oxford. For a comparable example see G. Fehervari, Ceramics of the Islamic World in the Tarek Rajab Museum, 2000: pl. 33, p. 46.

Antiquities
Ancient Near East