A rare Abbasid 'splash ware' bowl, Iran, 9th century

with convex flaring sides and everted rim standing on a disc base, decorated on a cream ground with three groups of green lines dribbling from the rim, the centre with a fish painted in manganese black

Figural imagery is exceeedingly rare on Abbasid 'splash ware'.  The fish motif can be found on an Abbasid 'inglaze' blue and white dish in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford (see Allan, J., Medieval Middfe Eastern Pottery, Oxford, 1971, pl.6, p.11).