Ceramic fragments with zoomorphic forms

These three fragments with their green-and-manganese drawings are rare testimonies to this type of production in the capital of the Hammadids. Their ornamentation, colour and guilloché treatment evoke Ifriqiyan productions from the Zirid period.

On the first fragment we see an elegant gazelle, of which only the front of the body has been preserved. It has long ears extending back on its head, a very long neck and a shapely body, treated with a refined, ‘guilloché’ ornamentation, on two elegant legs striding forward[1].

The more enigmatic second fragment appears to be of a gazelle being attacked by a falcon. The necks of the two animals are intertwined and the stylised head of the bird with its hooked beak touches the muzzle of the gazelle with its ears pricked up. The animal’s long neck and the smallness of its head lend us to believe that this could also be a giraffe, a much sought-after animal in the menageries of Muslim princes, often depicted in contemporaneous ceramic productions and paintings[2].

The third fragment is quite different in style. Here we have a peacock with a highly expressive head, surmounted by a crest in the shape of a fleuron. The fleuron, like its body, has a guilloché design in its centre. Decorating its body is an epigraphic band of Kufic script. All that remains is the beginning of its tail, its feathers represented by ‘compartments’ of decorative whorls.

These are common themes in Islamic iconography: the ornamentation of the gazelle and falcon, with the theme of the hunter and the hunted, incarnate the elegance and power of nature. A recurring theme in ancient Iran, it began to appear in productions of the Umayyad epoch. The theme was also frequently employed in the Khorasan province and in al-Andalus, as well as among the Fatimids. Many zoomorphic ‘aquamaniles’ or water pitchers in copper alloys have handles in the shape of falcons attacking the animal on the recipient; we encounter this type of animal combat on the arms of the cross at the Louvre[3] where gazelles are surmounted by falcons or griffons. A fragment of glass lusterware from the Fatimid era presents a fleeing gazelle[4], very likely being pursued by a predator. Likewise, such designs can be seen in productions from Carthage (Tunisia), a dish from Mertola (Portugal) and one from Denia (Spain), in addition to many other examples of green-and-manganese ware from the Mediterranean basin.

As for the peacock, its symbolic meaning has carried across cultures, varying from one civilisation to another. It has always been admired for the exuberance of its plumage and its particularly noble carriage or stride. In Iran it accompanies the sovereign; in India it is a solar symbol; in the Christian world it is the image of immortality—in the sense that its flesh was believed not to rot.  It has been depicted in varying forms and on numerous different supports: metal[5], ceramic[6]. Frequent on Abbassidian and Fatimid bowls, it is often accompanied by epigraphic script and floral motifs. We see similarities with the Qal‘a fragment in the productions of certain cities of Ifriqiya and Muslim Spain, as well as in the southern Mediterranean of the fourteenth century. The peacock bowl of Madinat al-Zahra[7] shows the animal in profile, a frontal view of the eye, its dark pupil, the crest and the tail joined.

The ivory caskets produced in the Christian context in Sicily and southern Italy—the inheritors of the techniques and iconography of the Fatimids—take up these themes of the peacock and animal combat with great vivacity (lions or falcons attacking gazelles)[8].

Such earthenware, termed ‘green-and-manganese ware’, was widespread throughout the Mediterranean and depictions of animals were very popular, especially in the 10th and 12th centuries, centuries marked by the introduction of an Oriental art form influenced by the world of Iranian art.

[1] A very similar fragment, depicting the front of a little donkey set against a guilloché ground, is in preservation in Paris at the Musée du Quai Branly (inv. 14873).

[2] Dish with giraffe, Benaki Museum, Athens, n° 749 and Kitâb al-Hayawân, New York, Pierpont Morgan Library.

[3] Arms of  a cross, Spain, Mozarabic workshop, late 10th-11th century, sculpted ivory, Paris, Musée du Louvre, département des Objets d’Art, 5944 et 5945.

[4] Fragment of glass decorated with a gazelle, Egypt, 11th century, Cairo, Museum of Islamic Art, n°163.

[5] Aquamanile-peacock, Spain, 972?, Paris, musée du Louvre, département des Arts de l’Islam, inv. MR 1569, of which the chest has a band of inscription similar to this one.

[6] Bowl with lustre and peacock, Iraq or Egypt, late 10th century, Paris, from the Croisier Collection, inv. C-M3.

[7] Bowl with peacock, Madînat al-Zahrâ’, 10th century, Córdoba, Museo arqueologico, inv. MA/MV/1104.

[8] Casket with pyramidal lid, southern Italy or Sicily, 11th-12th century, Berlin, Museum für Islamische Kunst, inv. K 3101 (second medallion from the left) and casket, Sicily, 13th century, Kuwait, the collection of al-Sabah, Dar al-Athar al-Islamiyyah, inv. LNS21.