Vessel Fragment with Polo Stick Emblem (Mamluk dynasty (1250–1517), 14th–15th century): Artwork and History

Vessel Fragment with Polo Stick Emblem (Mamluk dynasty (1250–1517), 14th–15th century) is in the Art Institute of Chicago collection. The museum lists its creator attribution as Islamic; Fustat (now Cairo), Egypt.

The work and its context

The Art Institute of Chicago describes the work:

This ceramic dishware fragment was decorated with sgraffito, a technique in which an artist applies colored slip or glaze to a piece of pottery and then incises it to reveal the contrasting color of the clay underneath. The artist applied more glaze on top of the sgraffito to create the design in the center of the dish, which depicts two polo sticks (jūkān). Polo was a popular sport among the Mamluks. This design was the standard blazon, or heraldic emblem, of the polo master (jūkandār), a member of the court given the honor of handing the sultan his polo sticks before the ruler played.

Object facts

• Title: Vessel Fragment with Polo Stick Emblem
• Date: Mamluk dynasty (1250–1517), 14th–15th century
• Artist attribution: Islamic; Fustat (now Cairo), Egypt
• Place of origin: Old Cairo
• Medium: Glazed ceramic
• Dimensions: 10 × 7.8 × 4.7 cm (3 15/16 × 3 1/8 × 1 7/8 in.)
• Type: Vessel
• Department: Arts of Africa
• Reference number: 1925.439

Collection credit

Logan-Patten-Ryerson Collection

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The description above is credited to the Art Institute of Chicago and reused under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0; HTML formatting has been converted to plain text. Other catalogue metadata and the public-domain image are provided under CC0 1.0.