
- Bowl
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Bowl
- Place of origin:
Basra (probably, made)
- Date:
9th century (made)
- Artist/Maker:
Unknown
- Materials and Techniques:
Tin-glazed earthenware with in-painted decoration
- Museum number:
C.1447-1924
- Gallery location:
Islamic Middle East, Room 42, The Jameel Gallery, case 2W
Glazed ceramics were not widely used in the pre-Islamic Middle East, but in the 8th and 9th centuries, they began to assume the important role they have today.
High-fired ceramics from China, first brought to Iraq by sea in the 8th century, were one stimulus for this change. In the early 9th century Iraqi potters began to imitate elegant white bowls imported from China. They used the local yellow clay, which they masked with an opaque white glaze. Soon they began to add new forms and decoration of different types in blue, green and metallic lustre.
Once Iraqi potters could successfully imitate Chinese whiteware, they began to treat the white surface of their ceramics as a blank canvas. Painting into the glaze in cobalt blue was a local innovation, which resulted in the world's first blue-and-white ceramics.