Contemporary value of the bowls

As a concerted effort to find out more about the contemporary price I contacted the Auctioneers at Bonhams to see whether they could give me a rough valuation. Whilst my emails were never answered, as with the Asian department at the V&A, I did manage to have an interesting telephone call with one of their auctioneers to find out more about my object.

Bonhams receives objects from all over the world, usually from individual clients. Because of this, they have a free valuation service that I was able to take advantage of. They were actually able to give some pretty good estimates on the bowls in the collection, due to the fact that they have previously sold some works collected by Henry Van den Bergh themselves. The further I look into the bowls, the more extensive his collection seems to have been.

They placed the value of the bowl at around £2000-3000 due to the fragmentation but said that other bowls in the collection would be fetching closer to £6000. This is a dramatic increase from its insurance value of £20 in 1984, which based on the Bank of England's inflation calculator would equate to about £60 now and hints to just how rare and special pottery of this nature is both aesthetically and as a historical artefact.

Lot 122
A MINAI OVERGLAZE-PAINTED POTTERY BOWL

Persia, late 12th/ early 13th Century

£ 10,000 - 15,000
US$ 13,000 - 20,000

A Minai overglaze-painted pottery bowl
Persia, late 12th/ early 13th Century
with flaring sides, the base with two figures flanking a tree, the sides with an interlacing palmette frieze, the exterior with a band of cursive inscription
20.5 cm. diam.

FOOTNOTES
Provenance: Formerly in the collection of Henry Van den Bergh
Henry Van den Bergh (1851-1937) was the son of the founder of Dutch company Van den Bergh Foods. A keen collector of art and antiques, he donated many pieces to museums during his life through the Art Fund. His bequests include a Minai pottery Mug in the British Museum (see R.L. Hobson, A Guide to the Islamic Pottery of the Near East, London, 1923, p. 35), a number of important 17th Century Dutch paintings in the Ashmolean Museum and a collection of Dutch tiles in the Victoria and Albert Museum (see Bernard Rackham, Dutch Tiles, the Van den Bergh Gift, London, 1923).
He also loaned various pieces to the Exhibition of Persian Art at Burlington House in 1931, one of which is illustrated in the catalogue (see Persian Art, An Illustrated Souvenir of the Exhibition of Persian Art at Burlington House, London, 1931, p. 57).

Lot 33A MINAI MOULDED POTTERY FOOTED BOWL

Persia, late 12th Century and later

£ 3,000 - 5,000
€ 3,500 - 5,900

A Minai moulded pottery footed Bowl
Persia, late 12th Century and later

with upright sides, decorated in polychrome and gilt on a white ground, depicting a large figure of a rider on horseback, the horseman wearing a cobalt-blue robe with gilt diamond-shape decoration, the trousers of turquoise, the figure with a diadem within a halo, the horse draped with a manganese saddle cloth with cobalt-blue border with similar diamond-shape design, the central field with raised details on the bazubands, sash and horse bridle, within a circular band of trailing vine, the rim with a similar vine, the exterior of the rim with a frieze of moulded palmettes and arabesques, the underside with a fragmentary label from the 1931 Burlington House Exhibition of Persian Art, composite with possible insertions and areas of restoration

16 cm. diam.; 7.5 cm. high

FOOTNOTES
Provenance: Formerly in the collection of Henry Van Den Bergh.
The designs on Minai bowls of this type are worked in underglaze colours, overglaze enamels and in cold gilding, the opulence of which shows that these were produced as luxury wares.

Lot 19R

A MINAI POTTERY BOWL

Persia, 12th/ 13th Century

£ 4,000 - 6,000
€ 4,700 - 7,000

A Minai pottery bowl
Persia, 12th/ 13th Century

of deep slightly flaring form on a long foot, decorated in polychrome and gold leaf on a cream ground with a central roundel containing a mounted figure hawking, surrounded by a band of seated figures interspersed by stylised foliate sprays, the border with a band of inscription in kufic interspersed by roundels containing palmettes, the interstices with split-palmettes, the exterior with a band of diamond motifs overlaid in gold leaf
23 cm. diam.