An Umayyad or Abbasid bronze ewer with carved decoration, Iraq or Persia, 8th/9th century

Sotheby's, London, 9 October 2013, lot 104

This elegant ewer belongs to a group of ewers attributed to the early Islamic era, distinguished by the pear-shaped body, bold vegetal motifs and stylised palmette thumbpiece. Ewers of this type retain characteristics of their Sassanian predecessors and bear testimony to the importance of portable objects in metal and other media in the dissemination of decorative motifs.

The present ewer is a particularly fine example of its kind and stands out for its complex and rich foliate carved and incised decoration. The decorative scheme is centred around a full lotus palmette on the central axis of the body flanked by stems which elegantly form a roundel lattice around the body enclosing leaf motifs. The full lotus flower palmette is close in style to those on the capitals and pillars in the sixth-century Sassanian site of Taq-i Bustan (Erdmann, pls.7-10, 12, and 14). Similar motifs were adopted by the Umayyads and are seen in the mosaics decorating the interior of the Dome of the Rock, Jerusalem, constructed between 688 and 692 AD.

Further comparable ewers are housed today in important museums and collections, notably the Historical Museum at Tbilisi/Tiflis in Georgia (Baer 1983, p.192, fig.166), the inscription on which tells us that it was made in Basra in southern Iraq; the Victoria and Albert Museum (inv. no.434-1906); the Keir Collection (Fehervari 1976, plate 14, no.50); the Walters Art Gallery, Baltimore (Baer 1983, p.135, fig.113, acc. no.54.457); the British Museum (Ward 1993, p.39, no.26); The Museum of Kabul (Rice 1971, p1.176) and the David Collection, Copenhagen (inv. no.17/2001).