Bowl with Flying Birds (1280–1400): Art, History and Details

Bowl with Flying Birds (1280–1400) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

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

During the Ilkhanid period, decorative motifs from China were adopted into Persian art, including dragons, phoenixes, and lotus blossoms, which are seen on this bowl. Lotus blossoms were easily integrated into the existing tradition of floral and vegetal elements in Islamic art, while the phoenix was equated with the simurgh, a mythical bird known from the epic Persian poem the Shahnameh, or Book of Kings. The white slip designs on a gray background are typical of these wares, while the flat rim is influenced by Chinese vessels. This type of pottery was widely exported, and possibly imitated, as it has been found in excavations from Central Asia to Egypt.

Object facts

• Title: Bowl with Flying Birds
• Date: 1280–1400
• Culture: Iran, probably Kashan, Ilkhanid period (1256–1353)
• Type: Ceramic
• Technique: Fritware with underglaze-painted design, Sultanabad ware
• Dimensions: Overall: 11.2 x 22 cm (4 7/16 x 8 11/16 in.)
• Collection: Islamic Art
• Department: Islamic Art
• Accession number: 1915.589

A detail from the museum

This bowl was made after the Mongol conquest of Iran in the 13th century.

Collection credit

Gift of the John Huntington Art and Polytechnic Trust

Further reading listed by the museum

• Charleston, Robert Jesse. 1979. Masterpieces of western and near eastern ceramics. Vol. 4 Vol. 4. New York: distributed by Kodansha International/USA through Harper & Row.
• Allan, James W. 1991. Islamic ceramics. Oxford: Christie's.

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.