This splendid bowl has a truncated cone shape with a straight plain black rim, on a short, everted foot, the interior is painted in black over a turquoise background with a central roundel containing a flower. The cavetto is finely decorated with painted arabesques, while foliage motifs decorate the interior of the rim. The exterior of the bowl is also decorated with a blue glaze as well as with black paint creating vegetative motifs arranged in a geometric pattern, typical of the Kashan’s decorative style.
The material of which this dish is made is also very distinctive and special. Indeed, fritware or siliceous ware is made of finely ground quartz (obtained from grinding pebbles or sand), which is then mixed with small amounts of liquefied glass (glass frit or glass fragments) and refined clay, in order to obtain a very clear paste. Manufacture of stonepaste in the eleventh century began very similarly in Syria and Iran but in the twelfth century, stonepaste production expanded significantly, as witnessed by a substantial increase in production centres. This new type of material also promoted advances in established techniques as well as the development of new ones, such as turquoise glazing, of which the present piece is a stunning example, as well as underglaze painting.
Monochrome glazed wares such as the one showed here was a very typical type of decoration in Iran and was later copied everywhere in the Islamic world. The colour of the glaze ranges from blue through green, turquoise, brown to yellow, and purple. Almost every type of vessel was covered with these glazes, including bowls, jugs, tankards, pitchers, utility objects and zoomorphic vessels.