This ceramic bowl with a stonepaste body is painted with coloured pigments in cobalt blue, turquoise, purple and black under a transparent, colourless glaze. It is inscribed with a blessing for its owner and the date of production during the Mongol, Ilkhanid period in Iran. The main decoration features an interlaced design in the centre filled in with six-petalled flowers. Alternating stippled and colourful bands decorated with circular shapes radiate from the centre and enclose four panels of Persian poetry in naskh script (the last verse is in Arabic). The poetry on the vessel reads:

O master who has both reason and judgement in your intellect,
May you forget all the world’s sorrows.
Whenever you desire food
May whatsoever you eat from this bowl benefit you.
May the high heavens bow to your wishes,
May you not be harmed by the evil eye.
And that was written in the blessed month of Ramadan, of the year seven hundred and twenty nine (July 1329).

Translation by Fahimeh Ghorbani with asssistance from Dr. Dominic Parviz Brookshaw, Professor of Persian Literature, University of Oxford.