Bowl with Geometric Designs (1450–1500): Art, History and Details

Bowl with Geometric Designs (1450–1500) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

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

This inlaid bowl has interlacing geometric designs in 12 arched panels that radiate from a star on the base. A pinwheel of six fish is engraved in the interior. Scholars recently reattributed them to Islamic manufacture, possibly for export to Europe.

Object facts

• Title: Bowl with Geometric Designs
• Date: 1450–1500
• Culture: Syria, Damascus, Burji Mamluk period, 15th Century
• Type: Metalwork
• Technique: sheet brass, inlaid with silver and gold
• Dimensions: Diameter: 13.2 cm (5 3/16 in.)
• Collection: Islamic Art
• Department: Islamic Art
• Accession number: 1945.133

A detail from the museum

The bowl's decorative panels contain six different geometric designs, each appearing twice, in opposing panels.

Collection credit

Purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• The Brummer Gallery Records. Cloisters (Museum), n.d.
• Foote, Helen. "Venetian Bronze Bowl Inlaid with Silver and Gold." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 33, no. 7 (September 1946): 143–144.
• Francis, Henry Sayles. Venetian Tradition: Catalogue of the Exhibition. [Cleveland, Ohio]: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1956.

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.