Bowl with Coptic Monk

This bowl is decorated in metallic lustre, a technique that had already been used on glass at the end of the eighth century[1]. It was adapted for use on ceramics in Iraq during the ninth century. The technique was kept a well-guarded secret in the workshops and required two firings: the first in an oxidizing atmosphere to fire the paste and the glaze, and the second took place in a reducing atmosphere to set the decorations, which consisted of copper and silver oxides. In Caiger-Smith’s view, there is no opaque glaze on this bowl, but rather slip covered with a transparent glaze. It would seem that a production of lusterware existed in Egypt during the Tūlūnid period. However, this production only developed fully during the Fātimid period (969–1171).

On the white ground there’s a man wearing a robe with wide sleeves and a hat, who’s holding a globular object with three chains—possibly a censer—in his right hand. This object and the shape of the man’s hat have enabled him to be identified as a Coptic monk. During the Fātimid period, most of the population in Egypt was Coptic. Although Ismāʿīlī Shīʿah Muslims ruled over Egypt, there were also many Sunnite Muslims living there. Copts sometimes held important positions, particularly in the administration.

There are vegetal elements on either side of the man: on his right is a long, spindly stem that seems to evolve from the bowl’s border, and to his left there’s a cypress or possibly a distorted ankh cross—a hieroglyphic character signifying ‘life’, which has been widely used as an amulet from ancient Egypt to the present day. Several elements borrowed from ancient Egypt are found in the iconography during the Fātimid period: in addition to the ankh sign, there are harpies. They were hardly used in the centuries before Islam, but, from the tenth and eleventh centuries, they were widely used in Islamic iconography—in the Arab, Iranian, and Turkish worlds. 

On the outside of the bowl, there’s a large inscription in Kūfic script[2], the Sèvres Museum, and the Louvre Museum. Most of these pieces originate from al-Fusṭāṭ, which may indicate that his workshop was located there. The style of Sa‘d’s work is characteristic of the evolution in Fātimid ceramics—not only in the composition of the pastes, but also in the decorations, which are more spaced out, and the absence of ocelli on the ground and decoration on the outside of the bowl. Other signatures of Fātimid potters include those of Muslim, Yūsuf, al-Dahhān, and Lutfî[3]. mentioning the name of the potter, Sa‘d. This epigraphy has a peculiarity that is specific to this artist: it is written in reverse, i.e. from the left to the right (whereas Arabic is written from the right to the left). Other characteristics of the piece seem to be recurrent in this potter’s work: particularly the use of lustre, the fact that the glaze stops above the level of the foot, the style of the writing, the shape of the man’s face and eyes, which are almond-shaped prolonged by a line and are highlighted with eyebrows that are joined together. Sa‘d is known to have produced many other works, most of which are held in the Museum of Islamic Art in Cairo, the Victoria and Albert Museum.

[2] For example, the fragments C. 1827-1921.

[3] Fragments in the Museum of Islamic Art in Cairo, see Bey Baghat and Massoul, 1930, p. 60.