Lot 953 AN ISLAMIC GILDED AND ENAMELLED FOOTED BOWL, 19TH CENTURY

An Islamic glass footed bowl: a rounded bowl with conical sides, standing on a pronounced, tall foot. It is enamelled in red, green, blue, and traces of gilding. The bowl features a wide band containing four roundels enclosing vegetative motifs and four bands of inscriptions in large thuluth script, placed between two narrow bands of floral scrolls. The spreading foot is decorated in red with stylized floral motifs.
Inscriptions: a repetition of the word "al-Alim," meaning "the Learned''.
Height 15 cm.
Diameter 16 cm.

Vessels of this characteristic shape, a rounded bowl with a pronounced, tall foot, were sometimes called tazze and were thought to evoke Christian chalices. They became popular in the Islamic eastern Mediterranean during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, a period of active exchange between the Islamic and Christian worlds.