Bowl with Horsemen

Mina’i is a modern collectors’ term for ceramics made in Iran during the late 12th to early 13th centuries. The term mina’i, translates as “enamelled” in Persian, designating the colored glass pigments used to paint detailed figural decoration on vessels or tiles, which were then fixed on the ceramic base by multiple firings. The use of a wide range of colors, including turquoise, red, green, purple, and black, also led these types of ceramics to be called by the Persian term “haft rang,” or “seven colors.”
Mina’i ware scenes created complex narrative scenes which paralleled manuscript painting. A central figure on horseback is heavily gilded on both the figure and the base, with six figures on horseback on a band of white around that gilded circle. About the inner rim runs a kufic inscription with faded gilding, and small geometric patterns are grouped about the exterior of the bowl.

Provenance

Provenance (from the French provenir, 'to come from/forth') is the chronology of the ownership, custody, or location of a historical object.

Dikran Kelekian, New York and Paris, [date and mode of acquisition unknown]; Henry Walters, Baltimore, 1929, by purchase; Walters Art Museum, 1931, by bequest.