Dish with Bird, Rabbit, and Quadruped Design
Unknown Artist
last quarter 16th century
Medium
Stonepaste; polychrome painted under transparent glaze
Dimensions
H. 2 3/16 in. (5.6 cm) Diam. of rim: 11 1/4 in. (28.6 cm)
Classification
Ceramics
Department
Islamic Art
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Purchase, Richard S. Perkins Gift and Louis E. and Theresa S. Seley Purchase Fund for Islamic Art, 1979
Accession Number
1979.412
Tags
Art Historical Context
This exquisite dish, titled *Dish Bird, Rabbit, and Quadruped Design hails from the last quarter of the16th century and exemplifies vibrant ceramic traditions of Islamic art. Crafted as a shallow serving vessel with a height of just over 2 inches and a rim diameter of 11 inches, it features lively depictions of a bird, rabbit, and unidentified quadruped, rendered in a playful, dynamic composition. These animal motifs, common in Islamic decorative arts, evoke the natural world while adhering to aniconic conventions through stylized, non-narrative forms. Made from stonepaste—a composite body of...