The vertical stripes drawn and painted on both interior and exterior of this vessel have rounded ends, so that the whole has the appearance of an opening flower.

The technique is called “sgraffito,” or “scratched,” for the fine lines the maker engraved into the surface before glazing. The bowl was made from dark red-yellow clay, and then, when leather-hard, painted, usually just on the interior, but in this case inside and out with a fine fluid white clay called slip. Lines scratched by the potter created both a surface relief and a darker color, as they revealed the darker clay beneath. After the first firing, the potters applied colored glazes, typically olive green (copper oxide) and yellow-brown (iron oxide) selectively, and then dipped the whole in a transparent glaze which, because of its lead content, caused the colors to run in the second firing. The result is an exciting, if sometimes surprising mixture of distinct linear designs and informal splashes of color. Bowls were fired in stacks, separated from each other by small three-footed stilts.

The edge of the bowl is further elaborated by crimping, almost like a pie crust. It may be because of the crimping that the glaze formed a few drips during firing, now visible on the upper lip, indicating that it was fired upside-down.

- J. Hanson

D. T. Rice, "Late Byzantine Pottery at Dumbarton Oaks," Dumbarton Oaks Papers 20 (1966): 207-19, esp. 214-216, 218, no. 6, fig. 8a, b.

Handbook of the Byzantine Collection (Washington, D.C., 1967), 90, no. 311.

A. Kirin, J. N. Carder, and R. S. Nelson, Sacred Art, Secular Context: Objects of Art from the Byzantine Collection of Dumbarton Oaks, Washington, D.C., Accompanied by American Paintings from the Collection of Mildred and Robert Woods Bliss, ed. A. Kirin, exhibition catalogue, Georgia Museum of Art, (Athens, Ga., 2005), 129, no. 62.

Athens, GA, Georgia Museum of Art, “Sacred Art, Secular Context: Objects of Art from the Byzantine Collection of Dumbarton Oaks, Washington, D.C., Accompanied by American Paintings from the Collection of Mildred and Robert Woods Bliss,” May 15 – November 6, 2005.

Said to be from Mytilene (Modern Greek Mitilíni).

Purchased from George Zacos (dealer) by Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, Washington, D.C., September 1958;

Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, Byzantine Collection, Washington, D.C.