Bird-shaped Vessel (1100s): Art, History and Details

Bird-shaped Vessel (1100s) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

This bird-shaped vessel may have been used as a medieval water vessel (aquamanile) for pouring water used in handwashing—an important element of secular and sacred rituals. In this piece, water could have been placed in the vessel through a hole in the bird’s chest and then poured out through the hinged beak. Birds in Islamic art often represented messengers and protectors, or symbolized freedom of the spirit and soaring of the soul. Possibly the blue-green eyes were considered good luck charms to protect the owner from the evil eye and to ward off misfortune.

Object facts

• Title: Bird-shaped Vessel
• Date: 1100s
• Culture: Iran, Seljuq period (1037–1194)
• Type: Metalwork
• Technique: bronze, cast, with chased and chiseled decoration; eyes inlaid with blue glass
• Dimensions: Overall: 17.5 x 9.5 cm (6 7/8 x 3 3/4 in.)
• Collection: Islamic Art
• Department: Islamic Art
• Accession number: 1948.458

A detail from the museum

There is an undeciphered Kufic inscription above the bird's tail feathers.

Collection credit

Edward L. Whittemore Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• “Part II. Annual Report Issue for the Year 1948.” The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art, vol. 36, no. 6, 1949, pp. 111–142.
• The Cleveland Museum of Art. The Cleveland Museum of Art Handbook. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1958.
• Persian Art Before And After the Mongol Conquest.: [Exhibition] April 9-May 17, 1959. the University of Michigan, Museum of Art, Ann Arbor. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan, Museum of Art, 1959.

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.