Byzantine Empire, ca. 12th century CE. Glazed terracotta bowl for domestic use; it has a decorated interior with a design that looks like a spade from a deck of cards (but which is almost certainly meant to be a leaf -- the spade as a symbol in cards was not in use until 1460s Germany). Byzantine pottery workshops that created glazed ware for domestic use based their designs on vessels made of silver or other precious metals. They used the technique called sgraffito, with the design incised through a white slip coating to reveal the red clay body beneath. These bowls were made and exported throughout the Empire. The National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC, has as part of its collection a very similar piece that was found in the Aegean. In the past few decades, there have been a tremendous amount of Byzantine shipwrecks discovered; for example, there is currently a major project excavating 37 individual wrecks from a site called Yenikapi, which was a port in Constantinople, that is being excavated as part of the construction of a new high speed rail tunnel under the Bosporus -- the largest collection of ships ever uncovered from a single site. Size: 7.8" W x 2.85" H (19.8 cm x 7.2 cm)

Provenance: Ex- Private New Jersey collection acquired before 1990

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#112926

Minor rim chipping, else intact. Barnacles on the exterior.