Glaze: silicious, transparent greenish-white; areas of a pearly iridescence due to decay.
Decoration: painted in brown lustre; spots of turquoise-green; inscriptions in naskhi, partly obliterated.
Provenance:
By 1939
Kirkor Minassian, New York, method of acquisition unknown [1]
From 1942
National Museum of Asian Art, Smithsonian Institution, purchase from Kirkor Minassian, New York [2]
Notes:
[1] See object file for copy of Freer Gallery of Art examination record, indicating that the object was received at the Freer via express shipment, from Kirkor Minassian, on March 11, 1939. See also Minassian’s letter to the Freer, dated March 10, 1939, confirming the objects which of his objects are at the Freer for examination. The list includes #1721, “One Raqqa pottery plate, absolutely unbroken and unrestored,” with a handwritten notation “Rec’d by express 3/11/39.” Copy in object file.
Kirkor Minassian (1874-1944) was a collector and dealer in Islamic art and Near Eastern antiquities, with eponymous galleries in New York and Paris. In 1929, Minassian presented a group of objects to the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., including a folio in Kufic script from an 8th-century Qur’an and a collection of Sumerian clay tablets. Following his death, his wife Antoinette (1874-1961) and his daughter Adrienne (1913-1994), succeeded him in his business.
[2] See object file for copy of Kirkor Minassian invoice to the Freer Gallery of Art, dated February 21, 1942, and approved by the Secretary of the Smithsonian July 22, 1940. This work is part of the Museum’s Freer Gallery of Art Collection.
Research updated February 9, 2024
Collection:
Freer Gallery of Art Collection
Exhibition History:
The Peacock Room Comes to America [2022] (September 3, 2022 - ongoing)
Art of the Arab World (August 15, 1980 to May 13, 1981)
Art of the Arab World (May 8, 1975 to August 20, 1977)
Ceramics from the World of Islam (January 16, 1974 to July 1, 1974)
