Bowl with iron-brown floral décor

Bowl with iron-brown floral décor

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

This bowl has a painted floral medallion as the central motif with a summarily executed floral meander on the rim. The freely drawn brushwork displays all the hallmarks of mass production, a skilled painter executing the underglaze iron-solution designs with a practiced hand. It has a high recessed foot, glazed on the exterior and with a chocolate-brown wash on the interior. Examples have been recorded from excavations at a monastery at Dazaifu, in Kyushu, southern Japan, at Trowulen, the Majapahit capital in East Java and at Fostat (Old Cairo), demonstrating the global reach of these ceramics in a 14th and 15th centuries.

Asian Art

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Bowl with iron-brown floral décorBowl with iron-brown floral décorBowl with iron-brown floral décorBowl with iron-brown floral décorBowl with iron-brown floral décor

The Met's collection of Asian art—more than 35,000 objects, ranging in date from the third millennium B.C. to the twenty-first century—is one of the largest and most comprehensive in the world. Each of the many civilizations of Asia is represented by outstanding works, providing an unrivaled experience of the artistic traditions of nearly half the world.