A Monumental Nishapur Imitation Lustre Pottery Dish with confronted armed figures, Eastern Persia,10th century

the earthenware body of truncated conical form with straight flaring sides, the interior painted in yellow-brown slip in imitation of lustre with two confronted armed warriors represented in part-profile with a single eye, each clasping a buckler or small shield, a quadruped with leaf-fom tail is painted above the figures, the interstices of the design filled with dots and the inner edge of the rim with a scalloped band, the exterior walls with a band of medallions filled with dots and cross-hatching and linked by stylised split-palmette scrolls

Perpetual Glory, Medieval Islamic Ceramics From The Harvey B. Plotnick Collection, The Art Institute of Chicago, 2007.

O. Pancaroglu, Perpetual Glory, Medieval Islamic Ceramics From The Harvey B. Plotnick Collection, The Art Institute of Chicago, 2007, pp.76-77, no.34

Overall good condition, restored from fragments with associated overpainting, slight discoloration on surface, as viewed
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The potters of tenth-century Nishapur are known to have imitated Abbasid lustreware in an attempt to compete with luxury imports from Iraq. Yellow-brown slip and white engobe are used in imitation of lustre pigments and opacified tin glaze, advanced technology which was beyond the reach of potters in provincial centres such as Nishapur.

Whilst some of the designs are close reproductions of the single-figure schema prevalent in Abbasid potteries, in this case the composition introduces a more overt narrative element with two figures engaged in combat. Teresa Fitzherbert suggested that such compositions need to be seen in the context of local fraternities, such as the futuwwa, a select group of young men, usually celebate, who dressed in trousers and boots and engaged in traditional chivalrous customs and practices pertaining to razm o bazm, "feasting and fighting" (see Fitzherbert, T., unpublished M.A. thesis in the Bodleian Library, Oxford).