Small Bowl with Quadruped and Inscription

7 Small bowl with quadruped and inscription Iraq, Basra, Abbasid period, 10th century[1] Buff-colored earthenware painted with luster (silver and copper) over white lead alkali glaze opacified with tin 5.6 × 16.2 cm (2 3/16 × 6 3/8 in.) 2002.50.71 Published: McWilliams 2003, 235, 237, fig. 11; McWilliams 2007, 14, fig. 1. The Arabic word for “blessing” (baraka) is written twice below the curious four-legged beast that fills this small bowl. The slender legs of the animal and its hooves with dewclaws probably indicate that it was intended to be a deer, a creature admired for its beauty and prized by hunters as game. Its neck, head, and upper back are an early restoration, poorly painted on plaster fill.[2] Mary McWilliams [1] This bowl is of “ancient origin,” according to the results of thermoluminescence analysis carried out by the Research Laboratory of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, in 1973. [2] The original head probably resembled that of a beast on a monochrome luster fragment (Benaki Museum, Athens, 231) illustrated in Philon 1980, 151, fig. 335. Philon identifies that animal as a hare.