A large Burnished Double Handled Bowl, Iron Age I-II, ca. 1400 - 800 BCE

Of red burnished earthenware, the tapering globular body sits on a flat base, narrowing to a flat rim with a wide mouth, two curved zoomorphic handles applied on either side, with a band of incised crosshatched decoration that sits below the rim. A very good example of type.

Iranian ceramic vessels were used to store, transport, and serve food and drink. Most of the bowl, cups, jars, and other common shapes that persist for millennia, could have fulfilled these basic purposes. Pots typically abound in domestic contexts. Occasionally certain shapes or features suggest more specialized roles in preparing or serving food. Many pots have also been recovered from burials, where they were commonly deposited with the deceased presumably to serve as food containers in the afterlife, and clay vessels were used in both elite and common burials.

Dimensions: Height: 11 1/4 inches (28.5 cm), Width: 13 3/4 inches (34.9 cm)

Condition: Intact and in excellent condition overall. A great piece!

Provenance: The Hauge Collection of Ancient & Iranian Art, assembled between 1962 and 1966. Foreign service brothers, Victor and Osborne Hauge, together with their wives Takako and Gratia, assembled their collection of Persian, Japanese, Chinese, and Southeast Asian works of fine and folk art while stationed overseas with the US government after WWII. In consultation with academics and dealers, the Hauges assembled over two decades of what former Freer Gallery of Art director Harold Stern described in 1957 as "without doubt one of the finest private collections in the world". Victor and Takako published Folk Traditions in Japanese Art to coincide with a traveling exhibition held from 1978 at the Cleveland Museum of Art; Japan House Gallery, New York; and Asian Art Museum, San Francisco. Much of their collection was donated to the Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery at the Smithsonian Institute culminating in an exhibition and published catalogue in 2000. The balance of the collection, including this object, was inherited by descent in 2016.