Minneapolis Institute of Art

Bowl with diamond, floral, and vegetal design

Iraq (Samarra)

Date

9th century

Medium

Earthenware with painted cobalt-blue designs, Samarra ware

Department

Asian Art

Institution

Minneapolis Institute of Art

These rare bowls typify those that apparently were made primarily in Iraq during the first Abbasid period of the ninth and tenth centuries. They are important early examples of ceramics decorated with cobalt-blue oxide, a Middle Eastern invention. During the period of Mongol rule in the fourteenth century, technically superior Chinese blue-and-white ware began to be exported to the Middle East, where it gained immediate popularity among the Muslim upper classes and influenced Middle Eastern styles for centuries to come. Asia

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