Mina'i Beaker with Seated Princes (1180–1220): Art, History and Details

Mina'i Beaker with Seated Princes (1180–1220) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

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

Mina’i ware takes its name from the Persian word for enamel. It was a luxurious type of pottery and used enamel painting to create true polychrome ceramic for the first time. Mina’i ware frequently combines blues, greens, and purples with sharp black and red executed with precise control. Figural scenes are quite common for these vessels and often recall book illustrations including rows of seated court members, sometimes flanking an enthroned ruler, and princely scenes of hunting or falconry.

Object facts

• Title: Mina'i Beaker with Seated Princes
• Date: 1180–1220
• Culture: Iran, Kashan, Seljuq period of Iran (1037–1194)
• Type: Ceramic
• Technique: Fritware with overglaze design, mina’i ware
• Dimensions: Overall: 13.3 x 12.3 cm (5 1/4 x 4 13/16 in.)
• Collection: Islamic Art
• Department: Islamic Art
• Accession number: 1917.977

A detail from the museum

A band of Kufic runs around the outside of the rim and another one is around the inside of the rim.

Collection credit

Gift of the John Huntington Art and Polytechnic Trust

Further reading listed by the museum

• The Cleveland Museum of Art. The Cleveland Museum of Art Handbook. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1958.
• The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1966. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1966.
• The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1969. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1969.

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.