This bowl illustrates the first stage in the development of Islamic luxury ceramics. 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. The shape of this bowl imitates that of a type of Chinese imported stoneware. It originally had the same bright whiteness, now dulled by long burial.

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. The high-fired stoneware ceramics from China, first brought to Iraq by sea in the 8th century, were one stimulus for this change.