Bowl

Art Historical Context

This exquisite 13th-century bowl crafted by an unknown artist, exemplifies the of Islamic ceramic artistry. Housed in the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Islamic Art Department as a gift from J. Richardson Dilworth, it features human figures rendered in a vibrant, luster-painted style on stonepaste—a composite body of quartz, clay, and frit developed in the Islamic world to mimic the translucency of Chinese porcelain, which was highly prized but unavailable. The luster-painting technique, metallic oxides fired in a reducing atmosphere to create a shimmering, iridescent glow, reached its zenith i...