Dish with Falcon Attacking a Water Bird (1100s): Art, History and Details

Dish with Falcon Attacking a Water Bird (1100s) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

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

The development of fritware in the Islamic world revolutionized ceramic production and was likely influenced by the import of Chinese porcelain. Fritware was largely made of quartz with small amounts of crushed glass and fine clay in order to produce a white body. The carved surface with raised outlines allowed glazes of different colors to be side by side without running together when fired.

Object facts

• Title: Dish with Falcon Attacking a Water Bird
• Date: 1100s
• Culture: Syria, possibly Tell Minis, Zangid (1127–1251) or Ayyubid period (1171–1260)
• Type: Ceramic
• Technique: Fritware with carved decoration and underglaze design, Lakabi ware
• Dimensions: Overall: 8.3 x 40 cm (3 1/4 x 15 3/4 in.)
• Collection: Islamic Art
• Department: Islamic Art
• Accession number: 1938.7

A detail from the museum

Sanctioned by the Qur'an (5:4-6), falconry was for many centuries a favorite sport of Muslim rulers.

Collection credit

Purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Hollis, Howard. "Two Iranian Pottery Bowls." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 25, no. 3 (March 1938): 43–49
• "Au Cleveland Museum of Art." Mouseion. (Avril 1938).
• The Cleveland Museum of Art. The Cleveland Museum of Art Handbook. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1958.

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.