A large and rare calligraphic slip-painted pottery bowl, Central Asia, 10th century

of truncated conical form with steep flaring walls stepped down to a low slightly everted foot, decorated in brown on a slip ground with a single band of kufic below the rim, the well with a trailed dot

inscription

la ghana’ ka’l-qana’a wa la ‘aql ka’l-tadbir li-sabr

‘There is no wealth as good as contentment and no sense as good as prudence in endurance’

The bleakly powerful calligraphic designs found on Nishapur and Samarkand dishes prompted Arthur Lane's famous comment: " [their] stark and moving simplicity [is] of the highest intellectual order; they hold the essence of Islam undiluted" (Watson 2004, p.206). 

Slip-painted bowls with calligraphed decoration, such as this, are thought to have been inspired by silverware. With their conical form, straight sides, wide flat foot and black on white colour scheme recalling niello on burnished silver, the ceramic dishes echo the few extant examples of Central Asian silverwork produced for the ruling elite.